


Amending The Book of Fixed Stars

by Tawabids



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Apprentice Rey, Dark Rey, F/M, Finn is Not a Virgin, Force-Sensitive Finn, M/M, Nobody has a healthy concept of love but they're trying, Rey joins stormtrooper tindr, Sith Knight Finn, Slow Burn Romance, content warning: discussion of sexual assault, dark finn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-02
Updated: 2016-09-06
Packaged: 2018-07-11 18:49:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 16
Words: 85,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7065895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tawabids/pseuds/Tawabids
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rey is the ambitious apprentice of Kylo Ren, loyal to the man who is her only family, but desperate to finish her training and choose her own path.</p><p>Finn is a knight of the First Order, trained to wield the dark side of the Force, but stuck in a job he knows is undervaluing his talents. </p><p>When different factions of the First Order set them each on a mission to recover a map to Luke Skywalker, they must work together to deceive Poe Dameron, but soon find themselves questioning their masters and the principles the First Order has bred into them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Protostellar

That morning, the girl who had been called Rey rose before her master. This was true of every morning when they were not in the field, but this morning it was particularly early. She went to the small bathroom their quarters shared. The privacy was precious and rare for a military vessel, but the simplicity and size of the unit was still ascetic. She put a towel around her shoulders, found the paste in the back of the steel-door cupboard and bleached her roots and her eyebrows. It stung a little, and would itch by tonight, but she would put liniment on it then and not need to worry for three weeks, maybe four, before the colour began to show through again. After a few minutes she washed the cream out and dried her hair. She put gold lenses in, shaved herself, and rubbed protective cream on her face and hands. The tattoos on her arms – concentric, black rings around her wrists and up almost to her elbow – always seemed to leap out of her skin under the bright bathrooms lights as she rubbed the cream into her skin. Everything in the ritual was familiar, yet every day she concentrated on each step as if it was new. If she forget a step, if anything was out of place, then Kylo would needle her with small words, make her feel ugly for the rest of the day. Or days, if a mission took longer. He always looked perfect of course, on the surface and beneath the mask as well. She wanted that perfection for herself. Especially today. Today was the most important day for a very long time. 

She had called herself Rey, ten years ago on Jakku, before the First Order found her. Now she was called Sno Ren, a portmanteau of her master’s order and the Supreme Leader’s name. She had not even heard that old name for those ten years. It did not come to her mind, not even in her dreams.

Sno braided her bleached hair into a single plait down her back, white as the stars. She went back to her bed and dressed in black. Kylo was dressing himself on the other side of the room, not looking at her. As on any ship, privacy was only preserved to the extent that it was given consciously by others. Sno laid out the breakfast that the ship had sent up to them on the low table in the centre of the room, knelt there and waited for her master to join her.

She had a very important question for him, but she didn't ask him that morning. She wanted to prove herself for one more day. 

They went down to Jakku that day, chasing the lead that had mobilized a whole cruiser. Like his shadow, she followed Kylo Ren to the village, and killed the old man for him when he asked. It was more difficult than she expected, pushing her blade through the aching bones and withered heart of Lor San Tekka. She had killed in battle before, by Kylo's side, but with the old man kneeling in the dust with dull eyes the strength didn't come easy. But she did it. 

As she straightened up she sensed the oncoming bolt of blaster-fire. Even as she spun to raise her lightsaber she knew she was too late. But Kylo Ren had moved before she did, hand outstretched, stopping the bolt in mid-air before it could complete its journey towards her exposed neck. She felt a rush of gratitude to him, and then shame for her mistake. Maybe she shouldn't ask him today, maybe she wasn't ready— no. No. He had promised. 

She hid her shaking hands in her sleeves while Kylo spoke to the Resistance pilot. She had to be perfect.

"Master," she said, after they'd taken the pilot and left the village to the stormtroopers. She had to take extra-long steps to keep up with him as he strode back onto the ship. "May I speak with you?"

"You may," Kylo said, pausing at the top of the ramp. The Resistance pilot was struggling as they forced him into a seat and locked down his restraints. She had to fight the urge to look at him. Strangers fascinated her. Why had he done something as stupid as spit on the First Order? Why didn't people like him _understand_? She wanted to grip his ears and stare into his eyes and ask him to tell her the truth about why he was the way he was. But not take the truth from him. Kylo would do that soon enough. 

She kept her gaze on the black visor of the mask. "Master, I asked you once how long my training would take, and you said, ten years." He was silent. She tried not to mumble. "Well – it's been ten years since you took me as your apprentice, and I – I am ready to face the trials. I want to be a Knight, like you."

A moment's silence. She heard the grunt of a stormtrooper as he tried to strap a belt across the pilot's shoulders and was bitten on the wrist, in the joint of his suit. She felt the flash of bitter joy from the pilot, the pinch of pain from the trooper, and the suppressed amusement from the trooper's comrade standing out of range of the pilot's teeth. 

"No," Kylo said. Sno's brief distraction was jerked back to the figure before her. 

"But—"

"You are not ready, Sno. Nobody attempts the trials before they're twenty-one."

"Master, I'm not nobody!" Sno stammered, chasing his invisible eyeline as he turned away. "I'm your apprentice! I am ready!"

"Ask me again in two years. Not before," the ship's ramp was closing, and he was heading for the cabin. She was left standing at back of the vessel as the engines shivered into burning life, her stomach compressed down as they lifted from the planet, the floor shifting beneath her feet. Two more years. Two more years of struggling every day to be perfect, of obedience, two more years of waiting for her destiny. He was her master, and she loved him, but he was _wrong_. 

The girl who had been called Rey and was now Sno looked around and met the eyes of the Resistance pilot. He gave her a wry smile, which she took to be mocking (she was right, she learned later, from Poe himself). If she had been Kylo, she probably have been angry, would have lashed out. She had seen her master's temper, experienced it many times when she had been younger and more foolish. But she was not Kylo Ren. She was, she believed, going to be greater than Kylo Ren one day. So she dismissed any trace of anger and held the pilot's gaze until the smile withered and the fear came into his eyes and he looked away. 

 

\---[]---

 

FN-2187 was meditating, hands resting on his knees and head hanging forward a little. He sat in the small guest room that the Sacorria administration had provided. It was furnished with a bed with a real mattress, and extra blankets in a drawer built into the base. There was even a small table in the corner, and a bench upon which had been laid cups, a small box of tea, and a spout that dispensed hot and cold water.

Despite all the luxury, Eight-Seven had been sleeping badly. It had been easier in the shuttle in which he’d flown to Sacorria. The noise never ceased even in that sleek, top-of-the-line vessel: the humming of the hyperdrive, the whirring of vapor recycling in the pipes, the taps of the micro-cleaners making their way around the crooks and crannies of the ship to sweep up the dust. But planet-side, in this comfortable little guest-room, the silence disturbed him when he lay down for the night. There was no chorus of soft breathing, nor the occasional grunt, or whimper, or the rustle of a blanket as one of his classmates rolled over and wriggled closer to one of the others to share warmth on a cold night.

The silence drove home to him that he was alone now, and would likely remain so for the rest of his career. Even if he returned to the Force academy as a teacher or an examiner, it would still be to more rooms like this. They had been trained to operate under almost any conditions - baking deserts, screaming hurricanes, anti-gravity, and altitudes at the limit of human survival. They had even been trained to work alone, on stealth missions, or holding a defensive line with only a lightsaber and their wits. But at least then they had had a purpose. Eight-Seven had never trained to simply _be_ by himself. 

Meditation helped, to balance him and remind him of his duties. Today, however, he found he couldn’t let go of his thoughts. There was something tugging at the edge of his mind. At last he realised it was not something, but someone.

Eight-Seven took a deep breath, released it slowly, and joined himself to the familiar mind that was calling to him from very, very far away. He opened an eye in the centre of his skull and saw-felt-heard the thoughts of KL-2266.

“Stix,” he pushed an expression of deference towards her. She was, after all, part of the military command now, while he was technically only an administrator. He left a tinge of teasing in his gesture. Until two months ago they had been equals. “It is good to meet you, comrade.”

But where he expected some snide response or a warm greeting, KL-2266 responded with what sounded like impatience. “FN-2187. I have a task for you.”

Since when did she address him by his full designation? He withdrew into formality. “What are my orders?”

Was she angry at him? Anger was permitted as a tool, in the academy, to give strength in battle or to reduce compassion and fear. There had been plenty of bursts of anger among his classmates, quickly mediated by their peers, over their few communal possessions or perceived slights during training. But cadets KL-2266 and FN-2187 had been more likely to be the mediators than to pick fights. 

The last time they had really fought had been nine years ago, when they were both fourteen. After he had made his decision to refocus his training (after what happened to TD... he tried not to think about that while he was linked to Stix's mind). Her anger had come out late one night, as they sparred alone with stunner-staffs. _“You’re supposed to be our leader!”_ she had shouted, knocking him down with more force than he’d expected. _“Stop being a coward and do your duty! Forget about TD!”_ But in her rage she had lowered guard. He had pushed back when she went in for the finishing strike and pinned her to the mat. _“Until you best me I’m still you’re leader,”_ he snarled. But they both knew his authority was already waning among the others. She’d beaten him four years later, when they were first set against each other in the ring, with real lightsabers. He still had the scar on his ribs. He’d got her back later, but she’d made her point. 

Now she was Lieutenant KL-2266, leading the First Order's first squadron of Force-wielding knights, and what was he? Alone in a silent room on the most boring planet in the territory. He had missed her, these last couple of months, but she didn't seem to have missed him. Or maybe that's why she was angry. Because he'd stuck to his choice, because he hadn't come with her into the ranks. He wished he could tell her how much he was questioning that decision right now. 

“The Resistance may have acquired a map to Luke Skywalker,” KL-2266 told him. “The First Order is in pursuit, under Commander Hux, but the Supreme Leader fears it may slip through Hux's fingers and wishes us to intervene. My team may not reach the Finalizer in time. I want you on site. You must be the first to reach the map. If you see a chance to get it, do whatever you have to do, and deliver the map directly to the Supreme Leader or myself.”

“Not to Hux?”

“To no one else,” she insisted. He understood what that meant. It had been drilled into them. Trust no one. Question everyone. But still—

“Stix, this isn’t my specialty,” he cautioned her. “I could accompany Hux’s extraction team, but going in alone is risky.”

This had been the whole point of becoming an administrator. He'd trained for eight years in long-range communication, in detection and analysis of Force users, in diplomacy and mind control, subterfuge and espionage, specifically so that he would not be put into these sort of paramilitary operations. He might regret the tedium right now, but he knew rationally it had been the right decision. 

“You are a Knight, FN-2187," Stix snapped. "Those are your orders. Contact me when you have a plan to get the map,” abruptly, KL-2266 vanished like a reflection in a lake, shattering in a gust of wind.

Eight-Seven’s heart was pounding as he broke out of his meditative trance. Against his better judgement, he felt a smile spread across his face. A mission to steal a map to Luke Skywalker. His career had been put on hold. He wished he didn’t feel so glad about it.

But KL-2266’s demeanor troubled him as he dressed quickly and called up his pilot to ready the shuttle again. Perhaps it was only the distance between them. Perhaps her attention had been divided. But for the first time she had seemed like just another faceless soldier.   
It was his first sign that something was wrong in the First Order's Force Academy. 

 

\---[]---

 

Sno did not watch Kylo Ren interrogate the pilot. Her master preferred to do that alone, for which she had always been glad. She knew it was a skill she needed to learn, to break into the mind of another, like hacking through the skin of an orbiting ship. Kylo had demonstrated it to her once, three years ago now, with her permission and preparation. It had not felt like a theft, as she'd expected, or the mere violation of privacy. At first it had been a whispering pressure she resisted, pleased with herself, but then it had grown stronger and stronger. All at once it had been like she was the ship, like there were fingers in a wound of her carapace, tearing into her intestines, sucking out her thoughts in an explosive depressurisation, hollowing her out no matter how she clutched at her own mind. She had been left sobbing, face-down on the floor of the meditation room, hands clawing at the surface as if to convince herself that there was still a barrier between her and the hideous darkness of empty space. _It's alright,_ he'd said, touching her shoulder. He so rarely touched her that it was a balm like no other and calmed her at once. She raised her face to see him smiling at her. _You did well. Your only mistake was your confidence, apprentice. I think if you had been truly afraid, if you truly had something to hide, you might even have kept me out._

So she did not watch the interrogation of the pilot, and she was studying interstellar cartography when she felt her master's rage ripple through the force. Something was wrong. It did not take long to find him, and learn the situation. The pilot had escaped, with help from an as-yet-unidentified stormtrooper.

Kylo and General Hux were arguing recovery tactics with two colonels. It had taken two years of recon and half a ship's worth of bribes to track Lor San Tekka even as far as Jakku, let alone get the trace on the Resistance pilot. Now he could vanish into the underbelly of the planet and hitch a ride to another system within days if they didn't catch up. They needed delicacy, Sno thought, not a platoon of grunts. She stood to one side, her hands behind her back. Hux shot her an indecipherable look. He always doled words out to her as if they were overpriced. 

By Kylo turned to her when there was lapse in the conversation. "Yes?"

"I could go, Master," she said, trying to sound unaffected, though her heart was pounding and he had to know it. "Alone. I know Jakku."

"Yes," Kylo agreed, after a pause. 

"And I can blend in—" she did not say, _you stand out_ , but he must have heard it anyway.

Hux's mouth went thin and crumpled as he glanced between them. Kylo nodded, "Sno should go down. She can find the droid before it slips away again, and lead the troops right down on top of it. The pilot doesn’t matter."

"Since when has the girl been going off on her own missions?" Hux snarled.

"Have faith in her," Kylo said, and turned his masked face to Sno. "She is my apprentice."

 

\---[]---

 

They were hit. It had been the ventral missiles. FN-2187 has knocked all but one of them off course with the TIE-fighter’s blasters, but all but one was still been one too many.

This has not gone as planned. When Eight-Seven dropped out of hyperspace earlier today a message from Stix immediately appeared on the shuttle’s mainframe. Hux’s extraction team had already launched, and captured a Resistance commander named Dameron, but the map was hidden on a droid somewhere down on the planet. Eight-seven knew that trying to find one rogue droid in a corrupt, backwater joint like this would be almost impossible unless you could make the droid come to you.

Eight-Seven sent his classmate back an outline of his plan. A few minutes later, she reappeared on his screen. “I’ll relay your intentions to General Hux. Beyond that, tell no one you are going after the map.”

The shuttle had docked on the Finalizer, and a captain greeted him and asked why a Knight would be visiting unannounced. Eight-Seven could sense the presence of other Force-users on the ship, ones he had no familiarity with; it was a strange feeling after years of extreme intimacy with almost all of the First Order’s Force-wielding soldiers. It must be the famed Kylo Ren and his apprentice. Eight-Seven shrouded his presence as best he could and skipped the formalities, waving his hand at the captain. “I need a suit of stormtrooper armour and access codes to the prison levels.”

And now he was in a stolen TIE fighter heading for a very short trip to Jakku. He swore inwardly as the resistance pilot tried to regain control of the ship. It was no good. Either Hux had never received KL-2266’s message, or he had chosen to fire on them anyway. Perhaps her caution had been right. Trust no one.

“We’re going to have to bail,” Dameron yelled. There was a tremor to his voice that might just have been the damaged stabilisers, or not. “We’ve probably each got a fifty-fifty chance of walking away if we eject at over ten thousand feet.”

FN-2187 was confident his own chances were well above fifty-fifty, but he had no intention of letting Dameron make the same gamble. Dameron was his link to the droid, and to the map, and to the completion of his mission.

“Finn?” the pilot shouted. “Are you with me?”

He had better start answering to that name. He couldn’t let his new mask slip even for a moment.

“I’m with you,” Finn replied as they spun wildly into the upper atmosphere and the wing of the TIE fighter began to disintegrate further in the extreme heat and friction.

“On three. One – two – three—”

He closed his eyes, and as Dameron jerked the ejection lever, Finn jammed the hammer above the explosive bolts. The pilot pumped the handle frantically.

“It’s not working!” there was real panic in his voice now. “Finn, eject! Forget about me. Eject now!”

“No good. Mine’s stuck too,” Finn answered, pretending to fumble with the controls of his own seat. He took a deep breath and, despite the shuddering of the cockpit and the rapidly increasing drag of their free-fall, let it out as slowly as he could. If he didn’t slow their descent, the extreme acceleration would ensure they were unconscious long before they hit the ground.

“Finn, buddy, I’m sorry. It was good to know you.”

This time Finn didn’t answer. He opened himself to the Force. His fingers flexed as it cascaded through his nerves. Pushing his surroundings out of his perception, FN-2187 wrapped his mind around the small ship falling at terminal velocity towards the desert.


	2. Metallicity

Sno chose a grey tunic and a white cloak that she knew would stain quickly, and thus look travel-worn. She took an old Howlrunner from the storage hanger, a ship that would be seen as regional authority rather than associated with the central command of the First Order. She flew down to the surface of Jakku, tracking the emergency beacon of the stolen TIE fighter to a belching sinkhole in the Badlands. There was one set of footprints heading latitudinally and the wide trail of something being dragged along with it. It led towards a town that she had once known. No surprise they'd head there. There were not a lot of other places on Jakku that it were safe to walk on. Sno took the fighter a click closer and then left it powered down in a hollow of sand, turning off even the auxiliary computers. She knew how quickly scavengers could trace the barest hint of electrics and the whiff of fuel. She took off her cloak and rubbed it in the sand, stretched the threads around the hem, and scuffed her boots again the rim of the ship until they passed as old. As she walked to the town, she pulled the bands out of her hair and tied it up again in three loops, the way it had been popular when she was a child.

"I'm looking for a droid," she said at the scrap-merchant's booth, keeping the hood low over her face.

"You want Shop Retroz," Unkar Platt grunted, pointing one thick finger towards the nearest alley. He wouldn't have recognised her even without the hood, she thought. He couldn't tell humans from each other all that well.

"No, I want a specific droid," she said, tilting her head. "If a scavenger was selling, they'd sell to you, or they'd be in for it."

Unkar Platt paused, his eyes narrowing. "Would they?"

"It's a BB unit," she said. "Orange details. It was stolen." 

He leaned down and rested his girth on the counter, sneering at her. "What a sad story. What would you like me to do about it?"

"Tell me how much you want for it to be _un_ stolen, and I'll be on my way." 

Five minutes later, she was heading into Platt's junkyard with her credit bar much lighter and a smile on her face. And there it was, straining against the leash of a magne-tite and beeping shrilly. The droid with the map. This had been all too easy. Platt thumbed the keypad on the wall and the magne-tite released the BB unit, which flung itself into the corner with a wail, swaying side to side in distress. "Your problem now," Platt smirked, and sidled off. 

The BB unit had an arc welder outstretched towards her. Sno knelt just out of range and pushed her hood back. "It's alright!" she said, smiling. "I'm here to help you," she lowered her voice. "I'm with the Resistance."

The droid whistled suspiciously. "I don't have a code," she said. "They couldn't give me one, they contacted me on an unencrypted channel. Where's your master? He'll recognise me, I'm sure," more beeping, "No, no, don't self-destruct!" Sno raised her hands. Okay, maybe this wouldn't be as easy as she thought. Did BB units even have a self-destruct function? Better not risk it. "Alright, alright, I won't make you do anything you don't want to do, yeah?" she stood up and brushed herself off. "But if you wander round this town by yourself, you're going to end up locked in another junkyard. So you can follow me, or you can stay here," she shrugged and turned, taking only one step before she heard a soft trill. She glanced down to see the droid rolling back and forth at her foot. "What's your model?"

There was a cautious trill. "Good to meet you, BB-8. I'm—" no, she couldn't give it her name, on the off chance the Resistance knew anything about her master and this droid had been informed of his apprentice. "I'm Rey," she said at last. It seemed right that she would end up using that name on this planet. Smiling broadly she jerked her head. "Come on. Everything's going to be fine."

She made her way through the town with the droid tucked in close behind. Scavengers and moisture-farmers ducked out of her way as she approached. She had not been alone among civilians for a very long time, only ever at the heels of her master. She'd tried to make herself look ordinary; she wondered what it was they were afraid of. Something about the way she walked.

They were at the fringes of the outpost when the droid began to beep in alarm. Sno stopped and crouched down beside it. "What's wrong?" 

The droid's eye was turned away from her, directing her towards a cluster of scrap tents not far away. Sno squinted at them. For a moment, she could see nothing out of place, then she spotted a figure hanging back in the shadows. He looked human, dusty and ordinary as the others around him, but not quite so ragged or sun-beaten. And he was watching them. "You know him?" she asked the droid, and it beeped. "He's wearing what?" another beep. Now she understood. It was the rogue stormtrooper. Her tone dropped to a flat drone. "Stay here. I'll sort this."

She stood up and bolted towards the tents. She saw the surprise in the man's face before he ran for it, but he had to weave between several overladen tables and under hanging jars to get away from the cover. She was on him by then, slamming into his waist to tackle him to the ground. Straddling him with one fist raised, the other balled in his shirt, she barked, "Traitor!" she pushed with the Force, a hard shove to knock him out cold so she could take him back to the ship, but to her surprise her mind came up against a wall of Force in return and the stormtrooper remained stubbornly conscious. As she brought her fist down to stun him the old-fashioned way he slapped his hand around her wrist just in time to turn the blow into the sand. 

Their faces inches apart now he hissed, "Dammit, Ren's girl! I'm on _your side_."

She paused, tightening her grip on his shirt. "What?" 

"I'm First Order," he whispered. "I'm trying to get the droid back to our Supreme Leader, same as you."

She pushed again with her mind, and again felt the response of a trained Force user. If nothing else, he definitely wasn't an ordinary stormtrooper. Watching his eyes, she got up and let him pick himself out of the sand, keeping one hand on her lightsaber. "Why did you help the pilot escape?" she hissed quietly. 

"To get the map! I needed him to trust me. There's nothing more trustworthy than helping him escape. I told the First Order this when I planned it. So what in the Galaxy are you doing here?" the not-stormtrooper glanced around, tugging his shirt until the sand fell out of it.

"No one told me the escape was fake," she said. "I don't believe you. Who are you? Who taught you the ways of the Force?"

"I'm a Knight of the New Order, for your information."

"No you're not. No one attempts the trials before they're twenty-one," she snapped, raising her brows at him and wrinkling her nose.

"I'm twenty-three!" he straightened his jacket and added at a lower tone. "I passed two months ago, alright? This was supposed to be my first field mission. And you're gonna blow my cover," he glanced over her shoulder BB-8. “Good job finding the droid. Let’s just deactivate it and get back to your ship.”

“Keep your voice down!” she hissed, glancing over her shoulder. “It’s threatened to self-destruct once already. If it suspects we’re working for the Order, we’ll lose the map for good!”

His eyes widened. “Damn. In that case—”

She heard the whistling of the droid and raised her finger to silence him. "BB-8, it's alright," she said as the droid rolled up beside them. "He's been helping your master," she shot the not-stormtrooper a surreptitious glare. "So where is Dameron?"

The not-stormtrooper narrowed his eyes slightly, but after a moment said – addressing the droid and ignoring her, she noticed – "Poe was banged up pretty bad in the crash. We holed up just out of town, I came to get supplies," he winced. "Turned out the scraps we recovered from the fighter weren't as valuable as we were hoping."

Sno tried to think. If she took the droid back to the Howlrunner now, BB-8 would wonder why she wasn't returning it to its pilot and would attempt to escape, or blow itself up. But if this not-stormtrooper was lying, she could be walking into a trap. There were no formidable Force users in the Resistance, Kylo Ren had always said he made sure of that. The only way anyone could have blocked her attack the way he had was if they were trained by the First Order. She knew there was an academy for young stormtroopers who were adept in the Force, run by the knights of Ren who had studied the old ways even though they themselves had little skill in them. She'd never met any of its students. Kylo Ren always spoke of the academy distastefully – dabblers and slaves, he called them, who would never be true Force Warriors like him and Sno – but it seemed to fit this man's story. 

So someone in the First Order had given this dabbler orders to recover the map. And Kylo had not known about those orders, or he would have told her. But the not-stormtrooper claimed to be on her side. If she was going to maintain the droid's trust, she'd have to play along until she figured out who he really worked for. 

"I've got enough to buy water and medical supplies," she said, one hand on her hip, pushing back her cloak enough for him to see her lightsaber as a warning. "Then we go find BB-8's master and get off the planet." _And back to the First Order_ , she hoped he understood. 

The not-stormtrooper's face broke in a genuine smile. "Fine by me. Hey, what do I call you?"

She'd already given BB-8 the name, so she couldn't go back on it now. "Rey," she said, glancing him up at down. "You?"

After a moment he answered. "Finn."

 

\---[]---

 

They left the town laden with a water pouch, a cheap vapor-condenser, a small box of protein packs and a catch-all med kit. She was annoyed to spend all but a few of her remaining credits, not because of the money but simply because of the principle of helping someone else complete _her_ mission. And that was _if_ Finn was telling the truth about why he was here. BB-8 had stayed close by them throughout the short shopping expedition, so she had no chance to press him on his claims. A part of her wanted to just take the droid and go back to her ship, but the threat that it would destroy the map was increasingly frightening. Hux would have been happy – Hux did not care about Skywalker, except to keep him as far as possible from the Resistance – but she knew that her master wanted that map with a desperation that she had not seen in him before. She might achieve the mission if it was destroyed, but she would disappoint the most important person in her life, and she could not do that. He had entrusted her with this task.

Out across the dunes, they walked with heavy feet in the sand. The low wind was hot and stinging on their cheeks. They followed the latitude trade-road for a mile; it was nothing more than a worn track that vanished in every high wind, marked out by buried pingers if you had the equipment to follow them. Finn then turned off at an ancient moisture farming station that had likely not worked as long as either of them had been alive. Soon they came over a spine of wind-blown dunes and there was an old AT-AT walker half buried in the sand. Sno gulped and followed Finn down the slope.

“He’s in there,” Finn told BB-8. “It’s safe, looks like no one’s been there since I left.”

The droid squealed and skidded down the rest of the hill, weaving back and forth across the sand as it almost lost its balance. It disappeared up a ramp of sand into the belly of the walker. Sno started to follow, but she realised Finn was walking slowly. He jerked his head at the walker and put his finger to his lips.

“So,” he hissed, as they slowed their pace to a crawl. “Your master really didn’t know I wasn’t a stormtrooper.”

“He would have told me,” Sno replied, leaning in close. “Who really gave you your orders?”

“One of my old classmates,” Finn said. “She and the rest of the knights who graduated with me are working directly under the Supreme Leader. They said the orders came straight from the top, and not to discuss them with anyone. My heart nearly stopped when we stole the TIE fighter and the flagship started firing on us for real. I assumed General Hux, at least, knew what was going on.”

Sno sniffed. “So you just happened to be within range of the Finalizer when a Resistance pilot just happens to get captured, and you just happen to get secret orders to break him out? That’s ridiculous. Either you or your classmate or someone above them is trying to steal the map for themselves.”

“No way,” Finn looked affronted. “Trust me, I know her. I’d know if she was lying, and she’s not easily fooled. Besides, what about you, huh? Kylo Ren used to be close to Luke Skywalker, that’s what I heard. I bet he has his own plans to find him.”

“My master is not a traitor!”

Finn shrugged, “Well one of us is, whether we know it or not. So we better stick together until we figure it out.”

“Fair enough, Traitor,” they were almost at the walker. “We might have bigger problems. Your pilot friend… he might recognise me.”

Finn glanced at her. “You sure of that?”

She elbowed him. “Sure enough to warn you that I could blow your cover earlier than you like.”

Finn chewed the inside of his lip, pausing at the round hatch where BB-8 has disappeared. “Alright. Just follow my lead,” he grinned. “Traitor.”

He heaved his supplies into the crook of one arm and gripped the edge of the porthole as he ducked inside. After a moment, Sno crouched down to follow him. No – it was Rey who crouched down to follow him. She better get used to using that old name for now. 

There were enough holes in the carapace of the walker to let shafts of light into the main hold. It was full of sand and mummified droppings of long-gone Steelpeckers. In one corner, the Resistance pilot sat propped up against the inner wall of the walker, in only his flight pants and a bloody, grey shirt. One leg stuck out to the side with the boot unlaced and dark, purple swelling around his ankle. BB-8 rested in the space between his knees, beeping rapidly, while the pilot beamed happily at him. “Slow down, slow down – who saved you? What girl?”

He raised his head to see Finn drop the protein packs by the door and start trudging around the ancient, gutted control panels of the walker. Then his gaze shifted to Rey’s face. There was a moment where a frown grew on his brow, and then he swore viciously and struggled to get up onto his good foot. He grabbed a rusty bar of steel that he must have ripped off the walker and brandished it in both hands.

“Finn, what the hell…? That’s Kylo Ren’s thrice-damned apprentice! She murdered Lor San Tekka in cold blood!” 

“Woah, woah!” Finn raised his arms, dropped the rest of the supplies in the sand. “Cool it, Poe! She’s here to help us!”

Dameron stared between him and Rey with utter horror twisting his features. “Are you crazy? The rest of the First Order will be right behind her!”

“If they were, you’d know it,” Rey said, pushing back her hood.

“Rey, hush!” Finn pointed at her, then turned to the pilot. “Poe, also hush. Rey was the one who helped me break you out, okay? She told me you were a pilot and sent me the code to your cell door.”

Rey felt a twinge of admiration at the lie, and the conviction in his tone. But Dameron just grimaced at him, keeping his makeshift baton raised. BB-8 had tucked himself in close to his feet, as far away from Rey as possible. “Are you kidding me? Has she done some Force-trick on your brain, buddy?” 

Finn approached slowly, his hands held open. “No, no. I didn’t tell you before because – well, would you have trusted me if I had? I didn’t trust her myself, really, but I figured I’d rather die trying to get away than stay with the First Order for another day. But Rey was the one who found BB-8 and brought it to me. If she’d been working for them, wouldn’t she have taken it straight back to her master?”

Dameron slowly lowered the steel bar, shaking his head. He jerked his chin at Rey. “What’s your story, Sith?” 

Rey held his gaze, her eyes flicking only briefly towards Finn, who had a pleading look on his face. She said at last, “I want to join the Resistance. I thought bringing you back to them might just convince them to let me in.”

Finn shot her a sharp look she couldn’t decipher, then he spread his hands and shook his head at Dameron. “You see what I got myself into? All I wanted was out, but now she says she wants in.”

“It’s true. I used Finn to get you off the ship,” Rey took a couple of slow steps towards them. “I didn’t want to expose myself unless I was sure I had something to bring to the Resistance, so I let Finn do the hard lifting and followed him in all the confusion afterwards.”

Dameron’s eyes flicked between them. He muttered, “BB-8, scan her for trackers or communication devices.”

BB-8’s eye swooped up at him in what might have been indignation, but finally the droid rolled over to Rey, staying a few feet away from her as a blue laser flickered to life on its face and swept across her body. She spread her feet and hands as BB-8 circled her, trying to keep her pose relaxed. She winced as the scanner finally reached her hip and BB-8 gave a shrill cry of alarm. 

“It’s just my lightsaber,” she pushed back her cloak and showed the pilot. “I couldn’t leave it behind.”

“Throw it here,” Dameron held out his hand. 

Rey hesitated. She could see his eyes narrowing, but the idea of being parted from her weapon for the first time in years made her teeth clench up and her heart beat faster. It was BB-8 who snapped her out of the tension, by jabbing her in the leg with his arc welder. Rey yelped, “Alright, alright!” she unclipped the sabre and tossed it to Finn, who walked it over to Dameron. 

The pilot examined it for a moment, with Finn leaning awkwardly close and muttering, “Careful – don’t… don’t cut your arm off –”

Dameron gave him a withering look as he struggled with the controls of the sabre. Finn twitched as Dameron shook the sabre with a grumble. “You have to – here, give it here—” he took the sabre and turned it on, holding it horizontal straight out from his body. Red beams extended in both directions, humming soothingly. Rey winced. Didn’t Finn realise how, well, _familiar_ he looked with the weapon? This ruse was never going to work.

Finn turned the sabre off again. “Happy?” 

“Sure,” Dameron said (unhappily). He took the sabre out of Finn’s hand. “I think I’ll hold on it for now, though.” As he hooked it onto his own belt, his weight shifted and he hissed, bending forward to grab his leg. 

“Sit down,” Finn gripped his shoulder. “I’ve got a kit, let’s sort out your ankle.”

Dameron swore himself blue as Finn eased his boot off, and then followed it up with, “It’s not that bad. It can’t be that bad. They’ll patch me up in a day when I get back to base. I’ll be flying again by next week.” He sounded desperate. Rey didn’t wonder why. You couldn’t operate an old-fashioned control system like the X-Wing without strong legs on the pedals. 

“Will they let you back in?” Finn asked as his fingers gently pressed along Poe’s foot to find the break. 

“What do you mean?”

“I’m gonna try to right this in a moment, and it’s going to hurt,” Finn warned, and then answered the question. “When I was a kid, the older stormtroopers said that when a resistance fighter was injured, their fellows were so hungry they would cut them up piece by piece while they were still alive to keep the meat fresh. That’s why stormtroopers shoot the injured in battle—” he pushed Dameron’s ankle from both sides, and there was an ugly crunch. Distracted by the story, it took about half a second for the pain to hit the pilot. A moment later, he howled and bit down on his own wrist.

“—mercy killings,” Finn finished, and reached for the casting tape. 

“Mother—” Dameron cut himself off and let out a long, slow breath. “They’re not gonna eat me, Finn. That’s just a story.”

Rey edged around the inside of the walker, feeling exposed and foolish without her sabre. She shouldn’t have given it away. She should have just taken the droid and fled at the village instead of coming here with Finn. What was she getting herself into? She ran her fingers over the old metal plates, marked by the scrapes of animals and the gnawing of rust. On the belly of the AT-AT, she brushed away the caked sand and found marks scratched into the patina. Tiny lines stretching out like a crowd of stormtroopers viewed from the window of a ship. So this was the same walker she had once hidden in. Her memories of those days were closer to the surface than she’d realised. She pushed them aside, but not with regret. She had been small and soft back then, but still, she’d survived alone for several years. She’d taught herself to speak droid from stranded, broken units hiding in the hulks of star cruisers. She taught herself to read from the scavenged flight manuals. She memorised every piece of every crashed ship in the area until she could have reassembled them in her sleep. And Kylo always said she was lucky to be alone. Families, he said, made you weak. 

(“What,” the young Sno had asked, “are we?” But he had not answered.)

She could pull off this mission without her master’s help. She was sure of it.

She was broken out of her thoughts by the echoing voices of the others in the walker. “BB-8,” Finn called. “Come bring me that welder you’ve got.”

The droid trundled closer. Finn had tightly bandaged Dameron’s ankle in casting tape. A momentary electrical jolt from the droid’s probe caused a reaction in the tape, made it harden and thicken into a cast that covered the pilot from calf to toes. He wouldn’t be running any time soon, but he might be able to limp. From what Rey could gather – the drag marks she’d seen from the TIE fighter, the door from the ship that lay outside – Finn had hauled him all the miles through the desert using the door as a makeshift sled. He must have had some help from the Force. She wondered again whether Finn wasn’t being careless. He should have just left Dameron at the crashed ship and gone looking for BB-8 on his own. Was he lying about his mission, or was he just too soft to do what had to be done? 

 

\---[]---

 

That night they ate the first of the protein packs and discussed how to get off the planet. Rey had already prepared her answer when Dameron turned to her and asked, “How’d you get here, Sith?”

“Took an antique Howlrunner from the historical archives,” she said, truthfully, chewing on the last of her protein stick as she watched the horizon through the open hatch of the walker. “They only get audited once a cycle. No one will know it’s missing for months, and it’s got no modern tracker on it.” 

He could not know that it took four troopers from the flight deck and an industrial piece of moving equipment to get the Howlrunner from the archives to the launch hanger. The Finalizer did not just leave space-worthy ships lying around for enterprising personnel to walk off with. No doubt Resistance fighters were told that the First Order was too incompetent to function. Otherwise they wouldn’t be so stupid as to fight it. 

“Those things don’t have hyperdrives. How are we gonna get out of the system?” 

“This one does. Used to be used for pre-jump patrols,” she lied.

Dameron was watching every twitch of her features. “You dummy-tested it? If it’s been in storage a while, the motivator can run down, you’ll get a flux once you punch it up and—”

“Flood the propulsion tanks with liquid metal, yes, I know,” Rey finally turned to look at him. “Do you want to tell me not to stand under the ion rockets while we’re at it?”

He wrinkled his nose. “Alright. So you’ve got things under control. Good.” 

She nodded and went back to watching the horizon. She already had a plan. She would get them all aboard the ship, and she would make sure Finn went into the back with Dameron and the droid. It’s not as if Dameron could fly the ship with his ruined foot. Once they broke atmosphere, Rey could put on the pilot’s emergency mask, switch life support systems to manual and drop the pressure to one quarter normal atmosphere. Even an experienced pilot like Dameron was unlikely to realise anything was wrong until his higher brain functions were already compromised, as he found himself breathing deeper, his limbs growing heavy and shadows flickering in the corner of his eyes. Within forty seconds – perhaps a minute in Finn’s case, assuming he was warned by the Force – they would both lose consciousness. BB-8 might become alarmed; Rey would put the ship on autopilot and rush to help her comrades, fitting the men with masks from the main emergency locker. She would have released the pin from Dameron’s mask earlier, of course. Its oxygen would be long depleted. He would never wake up. 

If she trusted Finn by that stage, she might not sabotage his mask as well. 

From there, it would be a short trip back to the Finalizer to deliver BB-8 to technicians who could disable it and retrieve the map as soon as it left the Howlrunner. And she would be bringing back the body of the Resistance’s best pilot as well. A job done well, and done elegantly. 

She just had to pull it off as planned. And she had to make sure that whoever Finn was working for, even if they really were in the Order, they didn’t get a hold of the map before Kylo Ren.


	3. Accretion

Finn suggested they take turns on watch; Dameron countered that BB-8 didn’t need to sleep and could watch for the whole night. Rey said nothing. The others left the droid on guard duty.

Rey dreamed of Lor San Tekka’s face in the moment of fear before she drove the lightsaber through his body. She sat up before her mind had shaken the sleep off, reaching for her weapon and finding her hip bare. 

“Hey, it’s alright – it’s me,” Finn whispered, crouching close beside her. He was just another patch of darkness in the shadows. BB-8 sat in the open hatch, rocking back and forth and watching them with the green flicker of its nightvision. Finn must have gestured to it, because a moment later it turned its eye back out towards the desert. 

“What is it?” Rey breathed. 

“I think I heard something outside. Back me up?” when she nodded, he got to his feet, his eyes better adjusted to the darkness than hers. 

They passed by the droid – “Gonna do a perimeter check,” Finn explained – and slipped out into the cold and silent darkness. The moon was on the rise. When she stared at it, it became dusty pink and pock-marked at her vision shifted. More colour in its face than Rey saw most days on the Finalizer. Not enough light to bring colour to the silvery sand, though.

“Where did you hear the noise?” she asked, falling into step beside Finn as he circled the walker and then headed towards the saddle of the dunes. 

“Nowhere,” he grinned at her, teeth a white flash in the darkness. “Just wanted to get out of there and have a private conversation.”

“You’re going to blow this,” she hummed. “Everything is under control. Be patient.”

“Sure, sure,” they reached the saddle. Finn dropped down onto the sand just over the ridge and Rey crouched beside him. From here the moon was directly above them. The saddle lay high enough to see a few lights from Niima Outpost. Behind it was miles and miles of empty dunes. Nothing twitched in the ocean of sand. The only thing moving at all was a couple of satellites dropping towards the horizon, probably leftovers from the war, their encrypted frequencies and access codes long forgotten. 

“We need to figure out who’s playing who,” Finn said, digging his fingers into the sand between his feet.

“Doesn’t matter to me,” Rey answered. “I’m taking that map to my master. We can share credit for the mission, but no more.”

“Don’t you ever question him?”

“Do you question the Supreme Leader?” she turned her gaze on him, and he yielded with a nod. 

He tipped the handful of sand back onto the dune. “We didn’t have masters at the academy. We were taught to question the loyalty of each other, and of our teachers, to test their resolve. I’m loyal to the Order, not one part of it.”

It would be a lie to echo him, and a Force user might know when she was lying, so she stayed silent. She leaned back from her crouch and sat down beside him, her arms crossed over her knees. In this light her tattoos were solid black like the void, sectioning her arms into slices. It made them look like they were not even a part of her body. 

“What are the trials like?” she asked. 

Finn swallowed, put his arms on his knees to mimic her pose. “It takes a month, with a different test every day, some lasting several days. Starts with basic tasks – sparring blindfolded, precognition, you know. Then endurance; distance, weights, cold, hot, pain. Then, while you’re still physically tired, they get onto the mental stuff. We spent a year preparing, and still only six of the eleven candidates passed for this round. The others will go again next year – I don’t know what they do with you if you fail twice.”

“That doesn’t sound that bad,” Rey said, watching him as she said it. His face didn’t flicker. “I thought at the academy they’d make you fight to the death or something.”

There at last was the twitch of emotion under the surface, but still he kept his face blank. He just shrugged, and his voice didn’t change. “On the last day they made most of us kill a traitor – troopers who’d tried to defect. One was just a cadet who’d frozen in his first battle.”

“’Most of us’? You?”

He shrugged again. “I got a pass for that one.”

“Why?”

Now he turned to look at her, a wrinkle between his brows, the first hint of an edge to his voice. “Why do you think?”

She hadn’t realised she was pushing at him with the Force until she sensed steel gates slam shut all around his mind. She looked away, dropped her hand to draw a circle in the sand. “I’ll get a pass too, then. I’ve killed people.”

“Enemies in battle don’t count.”

He was pushing back; he’d picked that memory up from her without her being any the wiser. She had left herself exposed. In an instant, she wrapped herself in layers of confusion. She wanted to say, _’it wasn’t just in battle’_ , she’d killed the old man in the village just yesterday – but she thought it would sound childish, or as if she was frightened of the trials. 

“We better get back in case Dameron wakes up,” she said, getting to her feet. 

She thought she would probably sabotage his oxygen mask when she dropped the atmosphere on the ship. _‘Loyal to the Order, not one part of it’_ – what the fuck did that even mean? How did he decide what the Order was if he didn’t believe in masters?

 

\---[]---

 

Things went wrong before her plan even started. 

The trouble was that the most direct roads between them and the Howlrunner took them through town. Rey thought passing through the Outpost was a bad idea, but Dameron insisted. They might get lost if they went cross-country through the dunes (he said), and besides, he wanted a shot of painkillers, and where else were they going to get them?

Rey was sure that Finn knew as well as she did that Dameron simply thought the backstabbing, scavenging traders in Niima Outpost were still more trustworthy than she was. No doubt he hoped to hire a ride from them – or enlist their help stealing Rey’s ship – rather than get on board with her. Finn, however, still sided with Dameron with little protest. It was a very long, slow walk to the Outpost, with Dameron limping on a makeshift crutch beside Finn, and Rey making small talk with BB-8.

As soon as Dameron was busy in negotiation with a bottom-rung apothecary to spend the very last of her credits, Rey grabbed Finn’s elbow and jerked him aside.

“Why are you doing everything he says?” she hissed through her teeth. “We need to stop messing about and get the droid onto the ship!”

Finn had been smiling at Dameron mere seconds ago, but in an instant his face went cold. He jabbed Rey in the chest with one finger. “Why do you keep arguing with him? He trusts me. Without that, we are gonna have to physically drag that droid on board, and I am not bringing that map home as a handful of vaporized metal shards. What happened to being patient?” he swept his hand through the air. He didn’t wait for her to reply, just turned away and went back to Dameron.

Rey took a deep breath, stretching and then clenching her fingers twice. She wanted her lightsaber back. She wanted to leave this miserable planet. She remembered that feeling when she had walked through town yesterday and the commoners had scattered in front of her. Everything had seemed to be going so well. But – Finn was right. She wouldn’t have achieved anything if she had used intimidation alone. She had come closest to getting the droid on her ship only because it had trusted her. Because she had pretended to be kind. She could do that for a little longer.

Kylo Ren said kindness, even feigned, was a weakness that would be exploited. 

Rey looked down to find BB-8 had rolled up close and was looking at her. It whistled a question, and she smiled. “I just want to get moving, that’s all,” she said. 

Which was when she heard the sound of the TIE fighters on approach. 

Finn heard it too, and they both looked at each other and nothing more needed to be said. TIE fighters meant an airstrike, not a recovery mission. There must have been stormtroopers nearby, yesterday or even this morning, and someone had ratted them out. They would obliterate the town from the air and Rey wouldn’t be able to stop them even if she was armed. 

Finn grabbed Dameron’s hand; Rey shouted at BB-8.

They ran. Finn had Dameron’s arm around his shoulder, dragging him with every limping step. Rey pushed carts aside and kicked a luggabeast to clear the way for the droid. She felt a stab of frustration, mingled with fear. She wanted her lightsaber. She wanted to be out of this town, out of the TIE fighters’ focus. She looked back at Finn and knew – both from his face, and a flicker of connection between them – that he was thinking the same thing. But that moment of connection was enough to precipitate their next shared thoughts; _we can do this_. 

“We need a ship,” Finn bellowed.

“This way!” Rey turned down the next alley, not looking back to make sure Finn and BB-8 were following. Her cloak was dragging in the wind; she tore it off at the throat and tossed it aside to be trampled under the panicked townspeople. She didn’t lead them towards the main shipyard, where space was rented by the pad and hired security ran an intermittent but armed patrol. She knew that back in her day, the junk dealers had good ships too, mixed in with the garbage ones that crashed in the desert or were stolen from travelers. That was their best bet for an easy commandeering. 

She was never sure how they got all four of them on board the only out-of-commission wreck that had been left undamaged by the airstrike. She found herself in the pilot’s chair, lifting off with a canvas sheet still covering half the windows. She could hear BB-8 beeping frantically at her not to close the ramp yet, but Finn and Poe got on board somehow. They weren’t out of the woods until a firefight and a chase later, but at last they broke atmosphere and she set the ion drive to take them deeper into the system until she could decide the next move. 

“Everyone intact?” she yelled over her shoulder, and heard a groan from Dameron. He sounded disappointingly alive. 

She ran into Finn in the corridor on her way to check on BB-8. He was smiling, and she stared at him until she realised he was smiling because _she_ was smiling. She hadn’t even realised it.

“Good flying, Traitor.”

“Good shooting, Traitor,” she answered. There was another beat of silence. He opened his mouth, the smile disappearing, “Did you see those fighters? They were gonna kill us—”

“I know,” she raised her hands. “You were right, somebody’s not on our side. Hux or your friend or maybe somebody else altogether—”

There was a bang and a hideous hissing, and from the main hold came a panicked shout from Dameron, “We got a distributor backflow!”

Rey bolted for the hold. Dameron was on his knees trying to get the grill off the floor. In a moment the three of them had it open and Rey dropped down into the guts of the ship. “Hand me a Harris wrench.”

“How bad is it?” Finn passed the tool down to her, leaning over the hole.

“The backup valve’s trapped the rupture but the pressure’s building up. We’ve got about five minutes to live unless I can—” she looked up to find Dameron holding out a pilex driver. “Yes. That’ll do. Find me the—”

He already had a roll of bonding tape in his other hand. He grinned. “Still got things under control?”

She snatched the tape from his fingers and turned her attention to fixing the leak. She was so caught between the task at hand and stewing on Dameron’s insolent grin that she almost didn’t notice the sinking in her gut until Finn spoke. 

“Rey,” he was getting to his feet. “I’ve got a bad feeling…”

The rupture was patched. She released the valve and the needle on the gauge nearby began to plummet back to normal. She scrambled back up. “Something’s coming.” 

Back in the cockpit, she fumbled around until she found the e-mag and could convince the ancient machine to do a full scan of their surroundings. “There’s a ship hunting us. It’s big and slow. And very close. They’re trying for stealth. I don’t think they’re attacking.”

“First Order?” Finn was leaning on the back of her seat.

She shook her head. “Pirates, maybe.”

Dameron had dragged and limped his way to the door. “We gotta jump. This whole system is full of marauders and First Order ships.”

“Jump where?” Rey stalled, watching the pirates crawl closer on the e-mag screen.

“Takodana,” Dameron hopped over to the copilot’s chair and lowered himself into it with a grunt. “It’s busy enough to hide, rich enough to keep the piracy rate low but corrupt enough to be friendly to all sides. We can liaise with a Resistance pickup team from there. Keep your feet close to your pedals, Sith, I can’t back you up.”

He was already punching coordinates into the hyperdrive. Rey glanced back at Finn. They were now so close to the Finalizer and the end of the mission. They couldn’t keep up the ruse any longer without losing ground. Finn gave her the tiniest nod and reached back to close the door to the cockpit so that they wouldn’t be surprised by BB-8. Rey looked down at her lightsaber dangling from Dameron’s hip. He was craning his neck to see how close the pirate ship was, unaware of her hand stretching towards her weapon, one finger twitching to open the clip with the Force. A single sweep of the blade, clean and quick, and Dameron would no longer be a problem.

An alarm trilled softly on the circuit board above their head. Dameron swore and twisted round, the lightsaber now hidden by his body. Rey jerked her hand back and looked up at a flickering, blue light. 

“I think that’s a tractor beam warning,” Dameron looked from the flickering light back at Rey. “We’ve gotta jump, now, before they override our controls!”

BB-8 beeped in alarm from the doorway and Finn jerked his hand away from the door button. Too late. Too late to escape the pirates, too late to deal with Dameron in secret. 

Rey took a breath and began priming the jump. Finn’s hand tightened on her shoulder. This was stupid. They were Force users honed by the First Order! They should just kill Dameron and disable the droid before it realised what was happening! Why was that so hard? Why had to taken her so long to grab the lightsaber?

In an instant she saw Lor San Tekka’s face behind her eyes, and felt it again, the resistance of his ribcage as she’d seared through the bones and sinews, the soft vibration in the handle of the sabre as his heart stuttered its final beats around the blade and then boiled in his chest, and how he hadn’t made a sound, the only sound had been his body burning from the inside out—

She flinched and shoved the thrust lever to full.

Three technical emergencies and a compressor bypass later, they were in stable hyperspace. Dameron collapsed back into the copilot’s chair, pushing his hair out of his eyes. “I think we got it. Good job, kids.”

His face was pale, highlighting the bruises and scratches from his imprisonment, and he was breathing heavily. Finn put his arm on his shoulder. “Did you manage to grab those painkillers before we had to run for it?”

Dameron shook his head and scrubbed his hands down his face. 

“Let’s lie you down at least, get some rest,” Finn pushed. He helped Dameron stand up onto his good foot and put his hand around his waist so he could act as a crutch. 

As he slumped against Finn, Dameron tapped Rey on your shoulder. “Hey—” She twisted around, heart racing, convinced he’d somehow have a blaster trained on her. But he merely waved his hand at his own face. “There’s something weird in your eye.”

“What? Oh,” she blinked, and relaxed as she realised what he meant. She brushed her fingertip to her left eye and held up the tiny, golden bowl. “My other lens must have fallen out when we were running through the Outpost.”

Both the men were staring at her. Finn said, “Wait, so your eyes aren’t gold, they’re just… brown?”

“Yes. Of course.” She glanced between them. “My master says control of the exterior world begins with controlling how it sees you.”

Finn grinned and shook his head. Dameron said faintly. “All this time I thought you were some kind… genetically engineered super-Sith or something.”

Rey felt her cheeks pink. She felt suddenly brazen, throwing herself into this character, the runaway apprentice casting aside her former life. The mission could wait, but right now – getting right now _right_ – seemed more important. 

She mumbled. “This isn’t my real hair colour, either.”

Dameron burst into laughter. The sound went right into Rey’s chest and stuck there like vibrations across the skin of a drum. 

“Before you go,” she held out her hand. “My lightsaber. I want it back.”

She and Dameron held each other’s gazes for several seconds, and then at last he reached down and unclipped the lightsaber from his belt. He put it into her palm and then pointed at the control panel. “Call me if anything plays up again.”

“I don’t need a co-pilot.”

“We're all each other’s co-pilots right now,” he retorted. 

Rey listened to Dameron start laughing again as they hobbled off to the back of the ship. She checked all of the ship’s instruments, but found she couldn’t remember if they’d all been in normal parameters and had to check them again. She found the life support panel on the pilot’s side, all lights in the green. Her finger hovered over the auto/manual switch. She could still lower the pressure, just as she’d planned. Once they dropped out of hyperspace above Takodana, she could just turn the ship around and go straight back home. What was she waiting for?

She hadn’t checked the emergency masks. They might have been used already, or expired, or lost years ago. Her own mask might not work. And besides, it wasn’t necessary to sabotage Finn’s oxygen. He was the first Force user she’d ever properly met who wasn’t her master. He was the sort of ally that would be useful one day. And Dameron – 

Maybe they should leave Dameron on Takodana and just go back to the First Order with the droid. Maybe. Maybe.

She should wait.

Rey put her hand on her lightsaber, just to feel the shape of it, familiar and near once more. As she looked down at it she saw something glint in the footwell of the co-pilot’s chair. She got off her seat and crawled down into the dusty space, patting the shadowy floor until she felt something round and smooth, smaller than a spark plug. 

She clambered back into the pilot’s chair and looked at the object in her hand. It was a tiny vial of colourless liquid. The label was in a Jakku script that took her a moment to read. As she frowned at it, Finn came back into the cockpit and leaned over the back of her seat.

“He fell right asleep,” he reported. “What’s that you’ve got?”

“It’s a sedative from a Jakku apothecary,” Rey said dully. “A few drops would be enough to make you hazy for hours. You probably wouldn’t taste the bitterness if you were drinking iodine-treated water like ours,” she held it out to him. “I think it fell out of Dameron’s pocket.”

Finn looked at the vial for a long time and then pushed her hand closed around it. “So he doesn’t trust you. We already knew that.”

“Finn, we need to talk,” Rey motioned to the co-pilot’s spot with a twitch of her head and he slumped into it, resting one foot on the edge of her seat, close enough that it would have been comfortable for her to put her hand on his ankle. Strangely, she wanted to do that much more than she had wanted to sabotage his oxygen mask. “We’re going in the wrong direction. We need a new plan.”

 

\---[]---

 

As soon as the others were in the cockpit, Poe sat up and leaned over the tiny couch in the main hold. From the drawer in the base he dragged a decades-old, long-range transmitter. The case was half-missing, the wires were exposed and some of the components were tinged with rust. Wiping the dust from the control panel he beckoned to BB-8, whole rolled closer. 

"Hey, buddy," he whispered. You think you can fix this? Quiet enough that the others don’t hear?" 

BB-8 whistled a question.

“I know,” Poe nodded. “They seem like nice people. But I want us to be prepared, okay?”


	4. Yellow Dwarf

“We can’t call the Order until we drop out of hyperspace,” Finn said. “Should we dump out early?”

Rey shook her head. “It’s risky. We could end up inside the death zone of a supernova. And I don’t want to risk a fight with Dameron until we’re landed safely.”

“It wouldn’t be a long fight,” Finn pointed up, glancing at her lightsaber. 

She shrugged. “All the same.”

“So what do we do? Leave him on Takodana and head home with the droid?”

Rey chewed on her thumbnail. “That’s what I was thinking, but BB-8 won’t trust us for long if we separate it from Dameron.” She pointed at one of the gauges on the control panel. “Besides, the Fusion core’s been left untended for years, it’s eaten itself to nothing. I’ve done some calculations, and we don’t have the fuel for a jump all the way.”

“Stars,” Finn muttered and leaned his head back against the seat. “Does the radio on this hunk of junk work?”

“The cockpit radio’s been cannibalised for parts,” Rey shook her head. “But I have a commlink that should be able to patch through.”

“Since when?” Finn raised his head. 

“Since none of your business,” she folded her arms and put her foot up on his seat, mirroring him. “So we still have to get BB-8 and the map away from Dameron and then call the First Order. They’ll pick us up in no time.”

“And what do we do if they send another airstrike to destroy the map?” Finn pointed out.

“That had to be General Hux’s doing,” Rey said. “I’m sure of it. He’s scared of Skywalker, scared he’ll be a game-changer if anything triggers him to return from exile. Hux would rather no one ever find him. But I’ll contact my master directly to make sure he knows about our location before Hux. And if you’re still not convinced of my master’s loyalty, you talk to your contact as soon as we’re on a First Order ship and we’ll make sure they both know we have the map so nobody can go against the Supreme Leader without _everyone_ knowing about it. Mission completed.”

Finn nodded. “I’m with you.” Neither of them pointed out the obvious; that this plan left ample room for Dameron to escape. They sat half-turned on their seats to face each other, holding each other’s gaze for a while as the ship hummed around them. 

“What are you—” Rey started to say, just as Finn said, “When you—”

“What?” Rey asked. “You go first.”

“I was just gonna say,” Finn shrugged. “When you go for the trials, let me know. I can help you train if you want,” he raised his hand as if for oath. “No cheating, of course.”

She ducked her head, repressing a smile. “Thanks, but… I don’t think my master would like me mingling with academy students.”

“Oh,” Finn blinked. “That’s fine. I’ll just see you on the other side,” he poked her leg with his foot. “You’re strong, Rey, and if you don’t go soft you’ll pass easily.”

“Of course I will,” she shot him a withering look. “Kylo Ren says I’m the strongest Force User he’s seen in a generation.” Finn just laughed at that, which confused her, because it was the truth. She added, “I was just going to ask what you’re going to do next. Another mission like this?”

He shook his head. “This was my first, and I wasn’t expecting it. I’m supposed to be working as a recruiter.”

“What’s that mean?”

“My job’s to find others like us, among the stormtrooper cadets,” Finn turned to look out at the dizzying lights of the wormhole. “There’s blood tests to pick up those with potential, but you know, blood tests are pretty unreliable. I was trained to sense an unfamiliar Force user from a system away,” he tapped the side of his head, “even one who hasn’t fully awakened yet. I visit the kids who register high on the screening tests and give them a couple of quick lessons, basic stuff, to see how strong they are. Decide if they’re worth sending to the academy or if they’re not good enough to cope with the training.”

Rey swallowed. “I think I met someone like you. When I was a kid. This woman came to the Outpost with a bunch of Stormtroopers and bought me from Unkar Platt. They took me to the First Order and gave me to Kylo Ren a few days later.” She frowned. “How do you do it? I didn’t think I could sense anyone who wasn’t my master, not until they’re on the same planet, at least.”

“It took a while. I’ve been practising for almost ten years,” he made a vague gesture at the ceiling. “That’s how I knew my classmate wasn’t lying when she contacted me about this mission. She was three systems away, but you can’t lie to someone when the whole conversation is in each other’s heads. We always worked as a unit like that, when we were at the academy,” he tipped his head back. “After the six of us passed the trials, I was sent away to become a recruiter and the rest went on serve the Supreme Leader,” he swallowed. “I’ve never really… been on my own before. Without other Force users, I mean. I gotta admit, when you turned up on Jakku…” he chuckled. “I took it as the Force helping me out.”

Rey was silent for a moment. Finally she said, “I can’t imagine that. My master has always forced me to act alone, without anyone to help. He said that other people create limitations, or allow limitations to fester. That if we seek power alone, give ourselves entirely to the Force, we will be limitless.”

She said it like a mantra, knowing the meaning without really listening to the words. She had heard it so many times before. But Finn looked over with a crumpled expression, his lips drawn back from his teeth. “That’s a terrible lesson.”

She had been slouched towards him, resting her chin on the knee that was outstretched towards his chair, but she jerked upright again. “Well, it’s what made me strong.”

“Then you haven’t really pushed yourself,” Finn said. “If you’d had, you’d know how wrong you were.”

“Excuse me—!” she growled.

“I’ve seen what happens when we give ourselves entirely to the Force,” Finn shook his head and withdrew his leg, propping it up on his seat. “Everyone has limits.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“I’ve _seen_ it,” he repeated. 

“What happened?” she demanded. She wanted to know. She’d heard all the old histories from Kylo Ren, but they were about great masters and great deeds. Even the warnings were about the political and military failures, the failures of people’s ambition, or their mercy, or their greed. Nobody who truly trusted in the Force had ever seen it go wrong for them in those histories.

Finn was staring at the control panel as if hoping an alarm would go off and distract them from the conversation. Rey said again, “Tell me,” and finally. “Please. I want to learn.”

He took a long breath through his nose. “You need to understand the choices we made at the academy. There were twenty of us in my class, in the beginning. There was another class of cadets who’d been picked up when they were older, but they all failed the trials in the end. We were started younger. We were the First Order’s hope for a new generation. And they pushed us. We were still living in our stormtrooper units, doing all the same training as them, and then the academy training on top that. They encouraged the regular stormtrooper cadets to push us away, to see us as the lucky ones, the snobs who were better than them. To bind us to the academy. We felt special and hated at the same time. And amongst all that they were telling us, you have a power inside you that will make you greater than any of them. We’d have done anything to become what they wanted us to become.”

He folded his arms, worried at the inside of his cheek with his teeth. Rey wondered at his use of ‘we’ and ‘us’, his confidence that he could speak for his classmates. But then she thought of him passing messages from his mind to another’s across three star systems and wondered how deep they had plunged into each other’s thoughts when they had been students. _We were taught to question the loyalty of each other, and of our teachers, to test their resolve_ , he’d said last night on Jakku. And now he was saying, _We always worked as a unit_ and _you can’t lie to someone when the whole conversation is in each other’s heads_. So there could not have been any secrets. What one trainee felt, they would all have felt. When one feared, when one doubted, when one questioned, they all saw it. Maybe they burned the weaknesses out of each other; or maybe helped to fortify the cracks until they were each soldiers of solid steel and Force. 

After a moment Finn continued.

“We barely slept. We’d be injured, get patched up in med bay, then sent straight back into training again. Some of us – the older ones mostly – they couldn’t cope with the regime, they broke down and were sent back to the cadets. Some injured themselves on purpose just to get a break from it all. Most of us just pushed each other, to convince ourselves as much as our classmates that we’d make it. If anyone fell behind, we were all in trouble. So we chose to push on no matter the cost. But there was this one kid, TD, She was the worst in the whole class. No strength in the Force, no finesse. She always got stuck on my team in war games because she had the same call-code as me – 2187. I was sort of the leader of the class by then so I tried to cover for her, I even skipped rest hours to practise with her, but they punished me for favouring her. They should have just sent her back, but she wanted to stay at the academy so bad. She kept fighting and fighting. And we encouraged her. We cheered her on even when we knew she was beyond exhaustion, putting herself and us in danger.” 

Finn paused. One of his fists clenched and unclenched around a wrinkle in his trousers. He shook his head. “They taught us to experiment with the Force, to use it however we could to beat what they threw at us. TD thought that if she could connect even deeper than we thought possible, it would make up for her failures. I think she wanted to be the gateway for the rest of us. She wanted to make us all stronger. But she went too far, went way past her own limits, and… it got her killed,” he looked over at Rey. “Suddenly being the top of the class lost its appeal for me. After that, I stopped trying to be their leader and just focused on the skills I needed to become a recruiter and an analyst.” 

“Why?” Rey asked quietly. She thought he would say something sentimental, something that showed his sentiment for the welfare of others, his inability to commit to the First Order. She wanted to hear that from him, because the lesson scared her, and she needed to know she was stronger than him.

Finn looked at her. “To save my own skin. Recruiters don’t end up on the front lines, and they don’t die screaming like TD.” 

 

\---[]---

 

They didn’t talk for a while. Rey checked all the ship’s instruments were normal and then did a sweep of the holds for any other signs of mechanical problems. The door to the sleeping quarters was open. At the sound of her footsteps BB-8 wheeled to the entrance to say hello. Dameron lay sleeping on his side on a dusty bunk with no mattress, facing the door. No doubt he’d endured worse arrangements during his career as a rebel. Rey had read First Order pamphlets about how miserable life was in the Resistance. Most people were kidnapped and forced into their army, but even the volunteers tried to leave as soon as they got there. The captains would beat the rogues and make them sleep in the mud, in cages, until they agreed to fight. At least, that’s what she’d read. Dameron didn’t seem like he’d been forced to fight. Until now she’d assumed he was the sort of zealot who’d force others. But maybe some of the stories were exaggerated. 

She found Finn in the main hold, sitting not on a worn chair around the game table but on an old crate in the corner. He sat staring at the grill beneath his feet, his chin on his hands. She felt like she knew that look. A soldier waiting for orders. She could wait like that for days when she needed to. And she understood that avoidance of comfort: Kylo Ren had trained her in the same way. Maybe their lives hadn’t been as different as she’d supposed.

“Staring at that wormhole was starting to make me dizzy,” he explained when he looked up and realised she was watching him.

“Feel like some water?” she asked.

He nodded. “As long as you don’t drug it.” She chuckled. He looked at her with a smile. “I think that’s the first time I’ve heard you laugh.”

“Me too. For a long time,” they had lost the supplies and condenser when they’d fled Jakku, but she found a pair of peeling, plastic cups in the cupboard and fumbled with the ship’s ancient recycler until it produced a spluttering stream of water. She sniffed the first cup, wondering how many years it had been in the tanks.

“Thanks,” Finn took a small sip. “Doesn’t taste too much like heavy metals.”

“Guess we’ll find out soon enough,” Rey kicked over another box and sat beside him, hands wrapped around her cup. She stared into the curving hallway. “It’ll all be over soon. Do you think we’ll get in trouble because we didn’t call for a pickup back on Jakku?”

Finn eyes dropped back to the grill. “Maybe. We’ll both put in reports and be ready for it.”

Rey felt a rush of blood to her cheeks. “Should we talk about what our reports are going to say?”

Finn’s eyes widened, but then a slow grin spread across his face. “Alright. I mean, it’s not like we deliberately shirked our duties,” he paused. “Did we?”

Rey straitened. “No. This was a subterfuge mission. Two subterfuge missions. Everything we did was to maintain cover.”

“Yeah,” Finn nodded. “We did good.”

“We did good, Traitor!” Rey stuck out her hand.

“We sure did, Traitor,” Finn grabbed it and squeezed. “Make sure we don’t celebrate too early.”

“There’s nothing left to go wrong, surely,” she downed the rest of her cup. “Why did you say – before – that you thought I was the Force helping you out?” 

“Well,” Finn shrugged. “You turned up out of nowhere with my droid.”

“But I didn’t help,” Rey pointed out. “If you hadn’t bumped into me, I would have got BB-8 back to the Finalizer without the droid ever knowing Dameron survived. And if I hadn’t turned up and made your pilot so paranoid, you would probably have found BB-8 in that scrap-yard and convinced Dameron and the droid to follow you anywhere. We didn’t help each other. We ruined each other’s plans.”

Finn laughed. “Yeah, but we both messed up, that’s what’s important. Makes me feel better about the next mess I get into.”

“I want to say something about what my master thinks of failure,” Rey said, smiling at Finn. “But something tells me you’d have an answer for that, too.”

There was a groan of settling metal. Rey jumped up. “That’s the engines winding down. We’re almost there.”

They dropped out of hyperspace while Takodana was still a blue-green crescent in the distance. Rey powered up the ion rockets and took them closer. “Where’s Dameron? He gave us these coordinates. Is he still sleeping—?”

“I’m here,” Dameron was hanging off the door. “You know I can’t walk, right?”

Rey pointed at the co-pilot’s chair. “Tell me where we’re going.”

“A little territory on the equator with very loose landing permit laws,” Dameron leaned across the control panel to program their approach. “There’s a bar there. Lotta good stories I’ve heard start at that bar. Mostly my mother’s. You kids ever been to a bar? Do they even have bars where you come from?”

“No. We just have the Network. Maybe not quite the same principle,” Finn rested his arms on the back of Rey’s chair.

“What’s the network?” Dameron asked, keeping his eyes locked on the instruments that Rey was adjusting to prepare their landing. At the same time Rey turned around to look up at Finn and mouth, ‘The Network?’

“You don’t know about the Network?” Finn addressed this to Rey. She shook her head. “What, did Kylo Ren not let you apply?”

“I’ve just never heard of it!” she snapped. “What do you do there?”

“Well, it’s not one place, it’s a, sort of, uh, a system,” the blood was flooding to Finn’s cheeks. “For. For meeting people.”

“Meeting people? Why?” Rey pressed.

“For – for – you know—”

Dameron caught on before Rey did. “For _sex_?” he squawked. He had abandoned the instruments and turned right around now to stare at Finn. 

“Well, relations are forbidden between soldiers who share duties together, no matter the rank,” Finn waved his hand. “But some people still have, uh, improved military performance when allowed an outlet for… their urges.”

“I thought you all took, like, libido suppressants or something,” Dameron sounded affronted, as if it had never occurred to him that just as Resistance fighters didn’t really eat their wounded, not all rumours he’d heard about stormtroopers were true.

In one voice, Finn and Rey answered, “No, reduces aggression,” and then smirked at each other.

“So what… the Network is like a… big room… where you all go to fuck?” Dameron’s eyes were just about to jump out of his head. Rey hoped she was hiding her own surprise slightly better. 

“It’s more of a menu,” Finn said, and then made a face at this wording. “Look, basically anyone can apply, you just do a bunch of infection and psych tests to be accepted and then again every three months. When you have a couple of hours rest time but you don’t want to sleep, you go see who else is awake. It’s all anonymous – just pictures of people stationed in your area, all faces from outside your unit you’ve never seen before. You pick the ones you like and if you both match and agree to the terms, you meet up at a Network booth for an hour or so. It’s all recorded for safety; you can’t give your call-code or pressure people during the meet-up, and you can report people who break the rules, which means the tape gets reviewed by a safety committee. If you miss a communication from your partner, you can get suspended from the Network. Anything regarded as deliberate or malicious coercion would mean a ban that lasts years.”

“Hang on, hang on,” Dameron raised his hand. “You’re telling me that somewhere in the First Order’s IT systems, there’s valuable storage space being occupied by… by hundreds or thousands of… of videos of stormtroopers… fucking?”

“I mean, it’s not always sex. Some people use the Network just to get some quiet time with a stranger – there’s codes people use to organise partners for that,” Finn said, speaking slowly as if he wasn’t sure which part Dameron was confused about. “But that’s discouraged. The Order worries what you might talk about if you’re not… occupied.”

“But you’re being _recorded_ ,” Dameron pushed. “Doesn’t that… put you off?”

“Well, everything in a trooper’s life is recorded,” Finn said, frowning at him. “You’re with other troopers every minute of every day. They chem-test your urine twice a week. You go for a six-hour thought evaluation every six months.”

“Man,” Dameron slumped back into the pilot’s chair, digging his fingers into his hair. “What a world. What a world.”

Rey wasn’t going to let him off that easy. “Can you match more than one person at the same time?” she asked. Dameron’s head whipped around to stare at her.

“Yeah, of course,” Finn grinned. “You just specify the number you’re looking to meet when you log on. Harder to organise, of course, because everyone has to match everyone else. But it happens.”

“Well, I suppose common soldiers must have some leisure pursuits, since they’re not allowed more intellectual vocations,” Rey shrugged, trying to keep a sudden swell of loneliness from showing in her voice. She doubted that her master would have actively hidden the existence of this system from her. She simply had no contact with the ordinary militia of the First Order. For ten years, she had not had a single conversation with anyone besides her master or a handful of senior staff. She’d only met common soldiers in occasional training sessions, when she was learning to adapt her own staff-fighting style to the double-bladed lightsaber. She swallowed a lump in her throat and returned to the controls of the ship. “Dameron, pay attention please, I need my co-pilot.”

Finn nudged her with his elbow. “You know, I heard moderated fulfilment of the body’s needs of was one of the only things Jedi and Sith used to agree on.”

Dameron snickered. “Yeah, I’m sure I heard that somewhere too.”

“Then perhaps I will have to apply to the Network in the name of my education,” Rey said.

A moment later, a cold shock spread through her. She tried to maintain busy hands on the controls as she corrected himself. “I mean, I _would_ have applied.” Her tone was light, but she could feel Finn’s panic gripping tight in his chest. They were so close, to give themselves away by speaking out of turn – Rey felt cuttingly hateful of herself, to the point of paralysis. She had been too friendly, conversing too easily, both now, and with Finn in the intervals where Dameron was absent. She had let her self-control slip. 

“Maybe I should talk to the general about starting a Network in the Resistance,” Dameron said after a moment, apparently distracted by maintaining the ship’s course towards the planet’s glowing atmosphere as they drew in parallel to its spin. Rey pushed at him with the Force, trying to get a read on whether he’d noticed her slip, but her probing slipped around his mind like it was black glass. 

 

\---[]---

 

After they landed, she stood on the lake and looked out at the planet. Life surrounded her, rich and alien in its wildness, nothing like the straight and hierarchical world of the First Order. She had seen planets like this before on missions with her master, but the older she got, the more they frightened her. No matter how much she learned, no matter how powerful she became, untethered life was stronger than her and just as unpredictable as it had been when she was a child. She missed the barren, life-threatening equilibrium of Jakku. She felt unready for the universe.

“You coming?” Dameron called. He was across the clearing, leaning on a crutch fashioned from spare junk on the ship. What did he really suspect about her? Had he picked up on her earlier slip? Had he noticed the drug he’d bought on Jakku was missing? 

Would she really have been able to kill him if she’d had the chance? It had been so easy, on Jakku, with her master watching her. This mission was supposed to prove she was ready to be on her own and look how little she’d done alone. 

Finn appeared at her side, his voice lowered as he spoke. “What’s wrong?”

Rey looked at him. He was beautiful in the warm light of the planet’s thick atmosphere. She told herself it was all part of his cover, the expression of sympathy on his face, the costume he’d assumed of the renegade stormtrooper with a heart of gold. It was all an act, and not even one he’d created for her benefit. But she was filled with dread knowing that by the end of today he would shuck the costume and return to the First Order’s ranks as another cold soldier. She wished she’d made up a cover of her own, instead of lying by omission, and letting Finn lie for her. The best she’d done was call herself “Rey” when all that proved was that she had not yet burned Rey from her body. By the end of today, she’d be Sno again, and Finn would be a number, but only one of them would really be a different person.

“I need to call my master,” she said.

“Okay. I’ll go ahead with the others,” he nodded and turned to wave at Dameron. As easy as that. They were going to go home.

Rey shouted across the distance to the pilot. “I’m just working out how to lock down the ship until we get back.”

She waited, fiddling with the controls that closed the ramp from the outside, until Finn had taken Dameron’s arm and was leading him along the path towards the looming, stone edifice in the distance. Then she tucked herself against the ship’s landing gear and slipped open the secret compartment in her lightsaber. She took out the commlink and activated it, thumbing in an access code.

“Node sixty-three, please state your transfer,” came a voice from some secret cell not far away. 

Rey gave a second code to confirm her identity and then, as she listened to the hum and crackle of the line, she took a breath and said, “Patch me through to Kylo Ren immediately.”


	5. Shockwave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone, please note that I have added a **character death tag** from this chapter onwards. I don't class this as "major character death" but this depends on who you count as a major character. If death/harm to relatively central characters is a trigger for you, **please be warned** for this chapter.

Finn had a bad feeling. He looked back at Rey as she caught up with BB-8, lagging just behind him and Poe. She was keeping her head down as she answered the droid with some deflecting assurance. She was walking the way he’d first seen her on Jakku, with a predatory direction to her strides that he knew (though he suspected she might not realise it herself) would frighten lesser-minded creatures. He was glad to see she was ready for a fight. The last thing he wanted was for the bad feeling to turn into a bad situation and not have her and their only lightsaber by his side. Still, he had the urge to go to her, nudge her, make her smile again in that awkward, unfamiliar way she had been doing more and more since she’d tackled him two days ago. They just had to keep up this act long enough for a pickup.

But the bad feeling wasn’t coming from her. He was sure of it. Something else was going to go wrong.

“Let’s see,” Dameron produced Rey’s credit bar from his pocket as they stood on the threshold of the enormous establishment, that looked more like a fortress than a bar. “Looks like I’ve got enough of the Sith’s money left for at least a dram of the cheapest swill humans can safely drink. You kids want to put your feet up until I find someone to help us contact the Resistance?”

There was nothing more to do but wait. Dameron, however, had a knack for making friends and pulled them over to an already-occupied table of Bothans. No sooner had he found out their names and suddenly the Bothans were ordering them fresh food and more drinks. Finn laughed along with their off-colour, foreign-cultured jokes, taking his cues from Poe as best he could. Rey sat at the edge of the table and picked at the food. Finn knew he needed to focus on Poe, but Rey was a distraction. When someone called for more drinks, from the corner of his eye he saw her jump up.

“I’ll get them,” she said, in a cheery voice he hadn’t heard from her before now, completely at odds with her normal voice, which sounded like it was laced with razors. The cheer worried him even more than he was already. He _liked_ her normal voice.

Forgetting his focus on Poe, he wriggled off the bench. “I’ll help carry them,” he said, falling into step with her.

At the bar, while the steward stacked glasses onto their tray, he leaned in close. “Did you get through to your master?”

“Of course,” she nodded.

“Good,” he glanced back at their table. Poe was gesticulating his way through another near-death flight story with the Bothan’s pilot, who threw back his head and crowed in an expression of appreciation. “Do you feel it? The Force is warning me about something.”

Rey frowned at him. There was a moment where something moved behind her face, as she considered her internal state. From what he knew of her, it would be like a dissection under a microscope. Finally she shook her head. “I don’t feel it.”

That was unexpected. They had been in sync back on Jakku during the airstrike, and again on the ship when the pirates had arrived, but now they were on different trajectories. He realised suddenly that he didn't want the mission to end. Maybe when Rey passed the trials, maybe they could work together... he dismissed that. She was Kylo Ren's apprentice. Her path was to become the sharp edge of the First Order’s blade, and he preferred to be at the comfortable end of the sword. But for the first time in a long time, he wanted something for himself. He wanted to know Rey better.

Before he could stop himself, Finn reached out and took her wrist. “When this is over, we’ll see each other again. I believe that.”

Rey shook her head, but didn’t pull away from his hand. “No, Finn. We serve different purposes.”

“I trust what the Force is telling me. We’re stronger together, Rey.”

“Weren’t you the one who said he was ‘loyal to the Order, not one part of it’?” she countered. It stung to be reminded of his duties when he’d been trying to convince even himself that he was doing all this for the good of the Order. 

"I'm going to take BB-8 out to the shipping park to meet my master," Rey slipped out of his hand and picked up the drinks tray. "Stay here and make sure Poe doesn't get suspicious. I'll come back for you once the droid is secured."

"Alright," Finn said, feeling the food settle heavy in his stomach. "Take care. We don't need any surprises."

She smiled at him, "Take care, yourself."

They headed back to the table where Poe was in conversation with a Bothan who was proudly explaining the history behind each of the six blasters he was carrying. BB-8 was examining a growling pet leashed to the Bothan’s chair. Rey crouched down to speak with it, waving her hand for it to follow. The droid went with her with only a brief hesitation. Finn was just about to sit down when something tugged at the edge of his hearing. He stopped, one hand on the back of the bench. Poe smiled up at him, "What's up, buddy?"

"Did you hear that?" Finn frowned, turning his head.

"Hear what?"

There was a girl crying out. Finn struggled to make out the words. Her voice was familiar. It was coming from the back of the bar, where the drink barrels had been arriving from. He took a couple of steps closer, ignoring Poe calling out his name. 

He recognised her at last. _"Eight-Seven, make it stop!"_

As if drawn by a hook, Finn slipped towards an archway behind the bar. He went down a flight of stone steps and into the cool of a cellar corridor. The light was poor down here, the air smelling of cured meats, packing straw and musty wood. 

_"Please! Stop me!"_

How was he hearing her voice? She had been dead for nine years. Was it just in his head, or was someone doing this to him? He passed locked doors until he got to the end of the corridor. As he touched the last door, the echoes of the voice were cut off. The door swung open. Inside was a hodgepodge of antiques, old furniture, rolled-up carpets and boxes full of spare droid parts. Standing at the front of the pile was a wooden box. Finn walked towards it before he knew what he was doing and knelt to lift the lid.

Inside was a silver tube like Rey’s, and like the ones they'd practiced with at the academy. He could tell at once it was old, in a style long passed. But it didn't look broken. He reached out to pick it up.

As he touched the lightsaber, blackness rushed across his vision. Finn jumped to his feet. A corridor stretched out around him; a voice whispered in his ear, "Eight-Seven," and he spun to find it. But now he was in a village he'd never seen. It was night. There was fire, and people ran past him, screaming, some carrying their children. As he watched a man rose out of the crowd jerking like a fish on a hook and— oh, by the Force, what was happening to him? — Finn turned away, his hand over his mouth, and found five figures striding towards him. He knew their faces even beneath their hoods, even in the fractured darkness. The leader lifted her hand— "No!" Finn raised his arms to protect himself — and when he lowered them he was in a forest and the screams had turned to the soft creak of tree trunks. There was snow on the ground, branches looming over him. He heard the hum and clash of lightsabers, and turned to see something monstrous, a creature of pure darkness reaching out to brush his cheek through time and space — and now he was in bright sunlight, a different world, surrounded by an army wearing white armour and black visors. A man with dark skin was sobbing, held back by two stormtroopers, as a woman with a blank face carried a wide-eyed toddler and a sleeping newborn towards a silver-plated Captain who took them and placed them into pods, registering the numbers on a scanner, "Tithe two-one-eight-seven," the captain sounded bored, "Unit F-N, and unit T-D," — Finn choked and stumbled backwards, and now he was in an expansive room of wood and lacquer, a place he knew better than his own hand, and he heard her crying again. "Eight-seven! Please! Stop me!" He turned to see himself, young, skinny, in a sleeveless training outfit, bending over the kneeling figure of TD-2187. How had he never known who she was? He must have known. He hadn't wanted to know. "Please, Eight-Seven, make it stop. Make me stop hurting them," she screamed as shook her by the shoulders, trying to break her out of the trance. In only a few minutes her dark-skinned face and hands had wizened and desiccated almost beyond recognition, her cheeks sagging, eyes hollow, the rings around her pupils turned yellow-white and burning like two dying stars. Electricity lit up the inside of her throat, dancing from her fingertips and crawling impossibly over the floor. His classmates knelt around him, clutching their heads, half a dozen adolescent voices wailing in perfect sync, and he watched his hands close around TD's throat, tears on his cheeks, crushing as hard as he could as he looked into her bloodshot eyes, and her words were not just coming from her own mouth, but from all their mouths, even his own, begging him to end it —

Finn threw himself backwards, out of the door of the room. The corridor was silent. Her voice was gone. She had been dead for nine years. Finn gasped in and out and in and out too quickly. He jumped as he realised someone was standing next to him, and pushed himself to his knees. It was a small, orange alien with eyes glistening behind thick, glass spectacles; the bar owner, the one who’s statue stood above the door, who the Bothans had named ‘Maz’.

Finn’s balance was gone. He felt like the room was lurching from side to side. "What was that?"

"Dear child," Maz looked into his face. She took her spectacles off and pointed towards his chest. "That lightsaber was Luke Skywalker's and his father's before him. And now it calls to you."

Finn stared at her.

"You feel the call of the light," Maz said. "You still have the strength to turn back."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Finn mumbled. “That – that was horrible. I’m never going near it again.”

“My boy,” Maz held out her hand, and after a moment he took it, her thin fingers cooler than a human's in his flushed palm. “You already know the truth. The dead cannot give you the forgiveness you need. They are gone.”

“I didn't know she was my sister,” Finn whispered. He shook his head. "I've got to go find Rey—"

Her grip tightened, suddenly incredibly strong around his fingers. "You know what she is becoming. Don't follow her."

"Stop!" Finn jerked his hand out of her grip. He backed away from her towards the stairs, shaking his head. He thumped his fist on his chest. "I am a knight of the First Order. I will never be a traitor," he snarled. "Stay away from me!"

He turned and ran down the corridor, then stopped himself short. Poe was standing halfway down the stairs, leaning heavily on his crutch. He had heard everything.

Finn looked into Poe's eyes as Poe shot him in the chest with the Bothan's blaster. 

He staggered back two steps as the beam ripped into him. He didn't feel the pain yet. Poe's brow was twisted, his eyes half shadowed, his mouth a flat line. Finn pushed his shock aside and reached for the well-spring of rage that was boiling up in him. Strength flowed through him, greater than he'd felt since the trials ended. He stretched out his hand and Poe's body went rigid, his eyes wide as the Force seized him by the throat and he was dragged down the steps. His crutch fell to the stone with a clatter. Finn held him high, let his feet dangle. The blaster fell to the floor as Poe clutched at his neck. 

"Is that all you’ve got?" Finn roared. After days and days of hiding the Force, he relished in the power, let it flow through him like a flash flood. 

"Didn't want to shoot you in the back," Poe croaked, heaving for a thin trickle of air. He had not come down here with the blaster by accident.

The pain was starting to hit Finn. With one hand he touched the hole in his chest, below and left of his ribcage. It came away bloody. "How long have you known?"

"Since we crashed on Jakku," Poe gasped. He gritted his teeth at Finn, his face screwed up in hate and fear, his skin flushing to a blotchy pink and white. "I've been in... crash landings, buddy... You used your damn Sith powers... to jam the ejection seats and slow our fall."

Finn groaned and clutched his side. The pain was hitting him in wave after wave now, his vision tinged with black. He didn't know where Maz was, or whether she was a threat.

"It's too late," Poe wheezed. "I called the Resistance as soon as we dropped out of hyperspace."

Echoing from far across the lake came the hum of ships. Not the high buzz of TIE-Fighters, but X-Wings. "No!" Finn cried, and closed his grip tighter. Poe's eyes widened and he began to struggle in earnest. The rage was in Finn's blood, pulling the Dark Side in, wrapping it around him like a cloak. He could feel Poe's life force fading. He could feel the pilot's throat even though he wasn't touching him, but he didn't know if he really felt it or it he was just remembering how it felt when he'd choked TD to death that day in the academy—

He shuddered and stepped back, both hands clutching the blaster wound in his stomach. Poe fell to the floor, crying out as he landed on his broken foot. He lay face down, gasping for breath, one hand clutching at the stone. Finn staggered past him towards the stairs, pressing his hand against the side of his head and reaching out towards the hot, deep-blue glow of Rey's mind. "Rey!" he yelled, and felt her twitch to alertness outside in the courtyard. He opened his mind to her and poured everything across the fragile thread between. "Rey, they're coming! Run! Get the map to Ren! Finish the mission—" 

This time, Poe shot him twice in the back. 

 

\---[]---

 

_“Finn!”_

For a moment she stood frozen, leaning back towards the stone fortress, the birds silenced and only the echoes of her own scream ringing in her ears. Finn had broken across her mind like a wave on a cliffside, his message scrambled into a single burst of thought, running through her fingers as she mentally snatched at it.

_Rey – Rey – Rrrrr – Ren – Ren – Run – Run – Resistance – Poe – Pain – Pain – – – – Finish it –_

Now, silence. She reached out for him, spread the Force thin in every direction, searching for the golden flicker of him that had been by her side for two days. Nothing. Nothing.

Then she heard what he had heard – the X-Wings in the distance. And she felt a new presence, a white, comforting pulse somewhere on the edge of her mind. “BB-8!” she looked down at the droid. “We have to run.”

The forest. It would hide her from the Resistance ships, and she could fight better than them on rough terrain. The droid whistled at her. “Finn’s dead,” she said, hearing herself speak cold and sharp the way her master did when he wanted the captains of the First Order to stay silent. “Poe, I don’t know. We have to get out of here.”

The droid followed her, still beeping questions, which she ignored. “Look!” she pointed overhead, as a TIE fighter shot past above her head. “It’s the First Order. We’ve got to hide.”

Hide long enough to find a way to her master before BB-8 figured out whose side she was on.

The branches whipped across her face as they fled deeper into the undergrowth, down gullies and splashing across thin streams. Rey came to a halt on a flat, mossy rise, her gaze sweeping the surroundings. BB-8 looked back towards the distant sounds of battle, beeping sadly. Rey dropped down onto one knee.

“They’re going to come searching for you. We could split up. They know you’re carrying to map,” she said, and held out her hand. “Give it to me, and I’ll take it to safety.”

BB-8 rolled half an inch back from her, a flinch but not a complete withdrawal. The red glow in its eye flickered rapidly. It sat shifting its weight, silent.

Rey raised her head as she heard the crackle of stormtrooper radios somewhere through the trees. “They’re coming!” she whispered. “I can run faster then you. Please, this is our only chance!”

There was another moment of silence, and then the droid made a soft, low noise that Rey could only partly decipher; but the closest phrase in Basic might have included the word ‘hope’. There was a click, and a storage panel in the droid opened up. Inside, gripped by small pads, was an old-fashioned data wedge. Rey reached out and picked it up as gently as she could.

“Thank you,” she said. “Now you have to go – go as fast as you can,” she pointed deeper into the forest.

BB-8 whistled, asking her where she was going.

She shook her head and stood up, taking one step backwards, then another.

He was here.

She turned. Her master stood a few feet away, wrapped in a black cloak. His mask hissed. Stormtroopers jogged through the trees behind him.

Rey extended her hand with the map lying in the centre of her palm. Kylo Ren took only three slow strides to reach her. She felt a wave of relief so overwhelming it made her knees shake.

“Well done, apprentice,” he rasped, taking the map. “You have performed your task perfectly.”

Rey felt as if her heart was pumping fast enough to tear loose from her chest. She bowed her head to him in acknowledgement, smiling down at his feet.

“Obliterate the droid,” Kylo Ren twitched his hand towards the stormtroopers. He turned and walked away. He did not see Rey close her eyes and shudder at the sound of blasters and the screech of warped metal. She followed a few steps behind him, hurrying to match his pace.

 

\---[]---

 

Finn drifted somewhere in the space above unconsciousness. His body felt far too heavy to move so much as a finger. The barrier felt thin between him and the dulled pain that writhed across him. There was a bright light on the other side of his eyelids and the clatter of thin metal, a faint sensation of movement. He tried to reach for the Force, but it was as distant as his body. 

“Stay back please, Commander— I mean it, go back to your ward or I’ll have someone drag you—”

Finn couldn’t put thoughts together. All he could do was withdraw from his mind, from all his senses, and focus only on breathing. It was painful, but it was the only thing that was important. The air smelled flat and slightly chemical, like fresh plastic. There was pressure on his face as well – a mask of some kind, but not one of the many he was trained to use as a soldier. This fact slid into his mind and out again without jolting any concern. Nothing mattered but that he keep breathing through the pain. Perhaps some days had passed; perhaps a few minutes. Somewhere in between. Everything was in-between.

A woman’s voice that was comfortingly firm, growling orders. That felt like home. “Alright. Clear the room. No – you – stay.”

He could feel that he wasn’t alone, but still the Force and full awakening eluded him.

Whispers at the edge of his hearing. “What exactly were you thinking, Poe?”

“I know, I know, I just— I thought he could be useful.”

“How?” a long exhale. “You heard, didn’t you? The Republic is destroyed. We can’t ship him off to a secure prison. There’s no courts left to try him. We don’t have permanent cells. What the hell did you want us to do with him?”

“General, there’s something else,” the voice faded from hearing, perhaps dropping out of range, or perhaps Finn was just losing his grip. _Stay alive!_ his own voice barked from the depths of the ocean. _You are a soldier. You have suffered worse pain. You have slipped closer to the void. You will live._

“What?” the woman’s voice was back, sharp and loud, cutting through the fog.

“I know. This means the First Order has fully trained, operational Force users. In the field. Incognito. This is bad, General.”

Silence, strained and heavy. A low curse. “Do we know how many?”

“From what I overheard, he’s one of six, not counting old Darth Kylo and his apprentice. But there will be more. And if the map really leads them to Skywalker—”

“Let’s not even think about that. I hope I’ll know if that happens,” another exhale. “Poe, if you’re right, we can’t keep this fellow on the base. It’s too dangerous.”

“Well, I mean, where else—”

“There is nowhere else. That’s what I’ve been telling you.”

A pause. “What are we going to do?”

“What do you think we can do?”

“General, seriously, we can’t just – he’s an unarmed prisoner –”

“There’s no such thing as an unarmed Force user, Poe.”

“Okay, okay, but just – he’s gonna be drugged out of his mind on painkillers for days – wait until I can get my report together—”

“I don’t like this.”

“I know. I’m not taking the danger lightly, trust me, I was the one who shot the guy. But he’s…. I know this is a mess, but…” Poe took a deep breath and his voice dropped, turned soft and sweet as a salesman. “When we were down in that cellar, just the two of us, he had the chance to kill me and he didn’t. That says something, doesn’t it? I think we can get something from him. I think we need to hold onto him.”

A long silence. And then, “Alright. I’ll wait for your report.”

Finn knew, even deep under the ocean where he lay drifting, that someone had just saved his life. But he let that thought slip away with all the others, and focused only on breathing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone reading, your comments really make my day. 
> 
> I will be away for the next three weeks so there will be no updates until after that, but this fic has not been abandoned.


	6. Redshift

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates should be back on track everyone, thanks for waiting. I have updated the tags to include “Major Character Death” for last chapter.

Rey dreamed she was in the village on Jakku. The night was filled with screams and fire. She was cloaked in black, but her hair was unbound, white strands blowing around her face as the transports landed on the edge of the crater. Lor San Tekka knelt in front of her as she ignited her lightsaber.

“Kill her,” Kylo Ren ordered.

She realised it wasn’t Lor San Tekka kneeling there in the sand. It was a girl her age that she didn’t recognise, with dark hair and dark, brown eyes. She looked at Rey and shook her head, tears streaming down her face. Silent pleas fell from her mouth.

“She will only hold you back, Sno,” intoned her master.

Was she Sno? Was Rey the one kneeling before her? She couldn’t remember.

The girl kneeling on the ground bent her neck, her hands clenched on her thighs. Rey raised the lightsaber to cut the scavenger’s head from her shoulders, but she hesitated. The weapon began shuddering in her hand. And when the girl raised her head her eyes were white, all white, and when she opened her smiling mouth the whiteness poured out onto the sand like caustic blood and she stood and grabbed Rey by the throat and smiled, and smiled pure white, and smiled as she choked Sno to death because she wasn’t Rey because Rey was Sno and Sno was Rey and this girl was something else was something else was something else—

Sno awoke with a jolt and clutched her throat. She was strapped into the rear passenger seat of her master’s ship. They were heading back to the Finalizer.

She fumbled with the clasp of her belt and clambered out of her seat. She went back into the rear of the ship where her master was examining the map on a holo-screen.

“Is it what you wanted?” she asked. Her voice rasped as if her throat was bruised and she turned aside to clear it. “Master?”

After a long moment Kylo Ren said, in a slow, curious tone that Sno knew meant he was holding back his temper, “It’s incomplete.”

“No.” Rey blinked, looking between him and the glowing constellations. “I’m sorry—”

“You didn’t know,” her master cut her off and closed the map. “Neither did the Resistance, I suspect. We have many archives from the Jedi temples to which the map can be compared. We will find Skywalker,” he turned to her. “You are troubled, Sno.”

She swallowed, and for a moment her vision was filled with that dripping, white smile once more. She pushed it to the back of her mind, away from his prying. “Master, there was someone who helped me take the map. He was from the Academy, but he disguised himself as a stormtrooper. He was the one who broke the pilot out of the Finalizer’s prison.”

Kylo Ren took a moment to answer. “We never managed to identify the trooper. You think he was a Force user? Working for the Resistance?”

“No – no, he was working for us. For the Supreme Leader. The prison break was a ruse from the beginning.”

“You’re sure?”

“I know it. He tricked the pilot into trusting us both, but—” _but I slipped up_ , she thought. _Dameron killed Finn because I slipped up_ , “I think he was attacked by the pilot, or by the Resistance when they arrived on Takodana,” she stilled her features as she spoke. “When we withdrew forces, was there any sign of his body?”

“No. Unless he had a stormtrooper bio-tracker, he would not have been recognised as one of ours,” Kylo Ren’s mask hissed as he exhaled slowly. “He said he was working for Snoke?”

“Yes. And we were attacked on Jakku by a TIE airstrike. I think Hux tried to destroy the map, even though we were in the firing line.”

“Hux and I have already discussed that. He went against me. He will accept my authority once he realises you completed the mission despite his meddling,” her master took the data wedge from the holo-screen and slipped it into his coat. “Your success will be reported to Snoke. I’ll make sure of it.”

“Thank you, Master,” Sno bowed to him quickly. “It is my privilege to—”

The scream cut her off. She clutched her head with one hand, eyes wide and nails digging into her skin. She was about to reach for her lightsaber before she realised the scream was only inside her skull. “Master,” she croaked, bent over the computer screen in front of them. The scream was coming in lurches and then dying out. It was weaker now, but still unbearable. She grabbed his wrist. “Kylo! Can’t you sense it?”

“Calm down,” he snapped, his arm tense under her fingers. She looked up at him and saw only controlled blankness in his face. The scream had ended.

“They were voices,” Sno whispered, slowly unclenching her fingers from his wrist. She had not touched him without permission for many years, beyond the accidental brush of hands or physical blows during training.

“Hux has used Starkiller Base to destroy the Hosnian System,” Kylo said.

“What?” she looked at him again. “Why?”

“When your are a Knight, you will understand,” he intoned. “You must harden your mental defences against the empathy. It benefits no one to be paralysed by it.”

She swallowed, her head still thumping like the echoes of an earthquake. “I will, master.”

 

\---[]---

 

General Leia Organa stood over the bed in her medical ward, watching the man’s drugged sleep. He was barely more than a boy, despite the grim set to his brow and the old lightsaber burns on his dark hands. A trained spy and an assassin, kept alive on her orders, in her base, with her precious people only walls away. She glanced at the analgesic drip, with its automatic feedback from the electrical nodes stuck to the man’s forehead. As it measured his discomfort, it would feed another few drops through the tube into his bloodstream.

It would be so easy to reach out and switch the dial from ‘auto’ to ‘manual’, hike up the dose higher and higher until the drip became a flood and the man’s heartbeat slowed to silence. A gentle death, without the fear those on the Hosnian system had felt (that she had felt through them). No one would punish her for it. The man in the bed was a danger to them as long as he lived.

But Poe would be angry. No, Poe would be disappointed in her. He was young, too, if not as young as the man in the bed. He still believed in good people. Worse than that, he still believed in taking stupid risks.

Leia reached out and rested the pad of her thumb between the sleeping man’s eyes, her fingers spread and hovering above his clammy skin. She wished she could see into him the way her brother had claimed to see into living minds. Wished she could know for sure if Poe was right about him.

He was so young to be a spy and an assassin. She wondered what would have become of him if he had been sent to Luke instead of to the First Order’s factory for child soldiers. If he had learned the lore of the Jedi and made his own choices in the universe.

She’d have liked to meet that man. Maybe Poe was right. Maybe she still could.

 

\---[]---

 

When they landed, Sno slipped back into place as Kylo Ren’s shadow, silent and watchful. The gleaming walls of the dock reflected the straight lines of marching troopers and swift movement of the deck crew, but Sno felt his thrum of caution as they left the ship. Her master had sensed something. A moment later she felt it too: a foreign presence, a Force user.

The woman stood at the dock with two stormtroopers at her side, watching them disembark. She wore all black, with a hood pushed to the crown of her head so that her face was not hidden. She had no cloak, opting only for simple trousers and a fitted jacket. Her skin was a soft, grey-tinged brown, her cheekbones prominent but low, rounding out her face and enhancing her youthfulness. But her expression was as cold as the barrel of a blaster.

Her gaze flickered towards Kylo’s mask and briefly across Sno’s face as the pair strode towards her. She did not salute. Sno could sense her Force strength, but her mind was like an unlit corridor. No matter how hard Sno stared, she could make out nothing but shadows, yet she had the shivering feeling that something was watching her from inside the woman’s mind. There was none of the push and pull, probing threads and shifting walls that Sno had found in Finn.

“Kylo Ren,” the woman spoke before he had even stopped. Her voice was a detached monotone. “I came to deliver the map to the Supreme Leader. Please hand it over.”

Sno expected Kylo to lash out at such presumptuousness, and indeed she could feel the anger under his mask. But he kept his voice controlled, speaking as he would to someone of similar rank, such as General Hux. “That is redundant. The map is incomplete. I will report to the Supreme Leader when I have studied our intel and can bring him… better news.”

The woman’s eyes narrowed. “My team can read the archives as well as you,” she held out her hand, long-fingered and burnished with calluses. “We have been delegated the task of hunting the last Jedi. You need not burden yourself with extra work.”

“What experience would children have in killing Jedi?” Kylo cut across her.

The woman fell silent. At last she said, “You should not challenge the Supreme Leader’s decisions, Ren.”

“And pawns should not presume to advise me, KL-2066,” Kylo replied.

He turned and stalked away. In the bare moment before Sno jumped to follow him, KL-2266 pinned her with a grey-eyed stare. “Apprentice,” she said, in the same blank voice as ever. “You are the one who recovered the map?”

Sno paused, half turned away from the woman. “Yes.”

“I sent FN-2187 after it. I have heard a report that he was with you on Jakku. Is this true?”

It took Sno only a brief moment to realise who she was talking about. “Yes,” she said. “I worked with Finn. I couldn’t have got the map without him.”

“I have not been able to contact him.”

“The Resistance killed him,” Sno said. “I’m sorry.”

After a moment KL-2266 answered, “That is a waste.”

Sno felt nothing from her, no curiosity, no grief, no anger. She had less life in her voice than a droid with its AI removed. This made Sno reel a little inside, struggling to keep her shoulders stiff. She would have expected KL-2266 to react to the death of a man she had been raised with for more than a decade. Was this what academy-trained Knights were really like? Was this what Finn would have been like, if he’d come back with her and taken his mask off? Had all those smiles and irritated sneers been just an act? But she’d felt his mind with the Force. It had been nothing like this.

The dark corridor of KL-2266 mind was suddenly frightening not just for its veil of shadows, but for the possibility that the shadows hid nothing at all.

Sno ducked her head in farewell and hurried after her master.

 

\---[]---

 

For the first few days, Finn healed and remained in a drugged half-sleep. By the third day, he was piecing his thoughts back together. On the fourth day he waited until they had removed his gastro tube. Then he snapped the plexi-ties binding his wrists to the bed, broke the nurse’s nose, pulled the needle out of his arm and fled the ward before the nurse could hit the panic button with one bloodied palm.

He made it down a long corridor and up three flights of stairs before a team of soldiers with stun blasters cut him off. He shook off the first three bolts through gritted teeth. When he threw out his hand and reached for the Force, his mind scrabbled only at his own empty thoughts, closed into itself like the walls of another prison. The Force was still there – he could taste it, a hum at the back of his throat – but he couldn't reach it. Semi-conscious from the blasters, it was easy for them to tackle him, cuff him and take him back to the ward. This time the restraints were padded metal. The nurse was the same, although now with two wads of gauze stuffed up his nostrils. He scowled as he jabbed the drip back into Finn's arm.

 

\---[]---

 

Sno Ren looked at herself in the mirror in the tiny bathroom of her master's quarters, and saw Rey's face staring back at her. She had not replaced her lenses, and the eyes looking out at her were a stranger’s, brown and soft. She thought of how the scavengers and beggars in Niima Outpost had scattered in front of her when she'd first arrived, and then how Poe had laughed when he learned about her disguise. 

That didn't make her angry; it had been such a genuine laugh, when there had been so little else that was genuine about either of them. But the more she thought about it the more angry she felt that she'd relied on disguises to show her power when it should have been obvious. Instead her face was still Rey's face. Her master had always said that disguises were necessary because no one would ever be afraid of a skinny, big-eyed, teenage human. But wearing the mask meant risking that people would look beneath it, as Finn and Poe had seen her, and she couldn't let that happen again. She could destroy Rey’s face, but it would be destroyed eventually with the abrasion of time, the scars of battle, the inevitable weight of the dark side. Or she could be patient, and own Rey’s face, become Rey when it was useful. She would find other ways to show her strength rather than be caught in any more lies.

She took the mechanical razor out of the drawer, hunted around until she found the attachment and then put it to the crown of her head. Line by line, the bleached, white locks fell into the basin and onto the floor until there was only a faint bristle of pale hair remaining. She ran her hand over it, her head feeling buoyant without the weight, her skin cool to the touch. She gathered the hair up and threw it into the incinerator.

When Kylo returned later that evening he paused on the threshold of the room for a moment. Sno knelt at the low table with a pot of tea. She raised her head from the tactical manuals she was reading. He said nothing and went to his pallet to remove his helmet, laid it on its stand and turned back to her.

"Snoke is pleased with you," he said. "You recovered the map where Hux and his thousands of soldiers failed."

She ducked her head. "It makes me glad to hear that, master."

Kylo came to the table and knelt across from her. She sensed that he wanted something and jumped up with the familiarity of long years to fetch another delicate, porcelain cup to pour him a draft of tea. "It's just brewed.”

"Thank you, apprentice," he nodded. She had already turned her focus back to her studies, but his acknowledgement surprised her and her head jerked back up to meet his eyes. 

"You’re welcome, master," she nodded. 

He took a slow sip of tea, balancing the cup between both hands. She waited, reading from the tense set of his shoulders that he had not finished speaking. And at last he said, "The Supreme Leader believes you should be put into the field sooner, rather than later. He wants you to take the trials."

She met his gaze for several long seconds. Her heart rate seemed to have slowed to a dizzying crawl, and then raced ahead of her. She could not think how to respond.

He shrugged. "It will take some time to organise through the Academy, which is for the best as you must find as much time as you can to prepare."

"In the Academy they prepare for a year," she said, her thoughts clamoring for attention in all directions. 

Kylo paused. "Yes," he said at last. "At any rate, I will make the necessary arrangements."

She felt a smile begin to spread across her mouth. Her stomach squeezed the tea she had drunk until it was almost forced up her throat. Suppose she really wasn't ready? Almost half of Finn's class had failed their first attempt. But she wanted this more than anything in the world, and Finn had said she was strong enough. She could not wait to tell – except – 

For the briefest moment, she had forgotten. Finn was dead. There was no one tell, no one to celebrate with. 

"Sno," Kylo said. "You seem troubled. Are you afraid?"

"No, master, never," she put her hands on the table and bowed her back to press her forehead to the triangular space between her fingers. "I am ready. Thank you. Thank you for training me. Thank you for everything."

As she raised her head, the polished lacquer of the table caught her reflection, and she glimpsed Rey's face again.

 

\---[]---

 

Finn was kept under closer guard after his first escape attempt. There were at least two soldiers with stun blasters in the room when the medics came in for each procedure – changing his bandages, or administering new nano-correctives. He was released from the restraints twice a day for a meal and to use the bathroom, though his hands were still cuffed in front of him throughout. He tried to memorise every detail of the medics and the guards' faces, their weapons, any small words they shared between each other. The winking, green glow of a camera in the corner of the room watched him in return.

There were no windows or any way to tell time in the ward apart from the meals, but the air didn't smell sterile and dry enough for a space station and there were none of the occasional hums and rumbles of distant engines or the swoops of artificial gravity adjusting to orbital changes, so he didn't think he was on a carrier ship either. Probably a planet or large moon. That was good. That meant if he could at least get out of the base, he might have somewhere to go: a local populace he could control, or at least some terrain where he could hide. 

While he considered his choices, he struggled constantly to reestablish a proper connection to the Force. There were moments he thought he could almost sense some of the people around him, a bustling hive of military life, but they were brief and he could do nothing to manipulate them. It was far more debilitating than being strapped to the bed. The loss was like going deaf in the middle of a battle, leaving him suddenly vulnerable to anything he couldn't see right in front of his face. 

Two days after his escape attempt, the door opened about an hour after his morning meal, which was a change in routine that made Finn sit up in bed as far as the cuffs would allow.

It was Poe. 

Finn clenched his fists and then slowly relaxed them. There were two extra guards behind Poe as he limped into the room on a crutch. He leaned against the wall to Finn's left, propping the crutch up beside him and folding his hands in front. Finn glanced the pilot over, noting the fading bruises on his neck. He was in civilian clothes; a high-collared shirt under the same brown jacket he had worn when Finn had pulled him out of the cell on the Finalizer. Someone had laundered it so that it looked almost new. 

"How are you feeling?"

Finn held his eye. "Wishing I'd killed you when I had the chance."

The corner of Poe's mouth twitched, though Finn couldn't tell if it was a smile or a grimace. "That makes one of us," he said, leaning forward a little and speaking in a loud whisper as if the guards at the door wouldn't hear him. He waited, watching Finn's face. At last he continued, "Doc says you're stable, so we're gonna move you somewhere you can walk around and pee without someone standing behind you with a blaster. Bit more comfortable, right?"

Finn just stared at him coolly. Poe shifted his weight, winced when it hurt his bad foot and went back to the way he'd been standing. He asked, as if offering a new lunch menu, "Are you willing to wear a hood so we can walk to your new room?"

"I’m not cooperating. You're not going to get anything front me," Finn cut him off. "The First Order does not negotiate with insurgents. So your choices are to waste your men and your medicine keeping me drugged in a cell until I escape, or kill me before then. There's no third option. I will never stop trying to get back to them."

"Isn't the third option that they come back for _you_?" Poe countered without a moment's hesitation. Finn didn't answer. Poe frowned. "No? I'd have thought you were worth a rescue mission, if you’d been on my side," he gave a confused shake of his head and then cleared his throat. "We're not going to kill you, Finn. The General has promised me that. And we're not going to eat you either," he winked, and Finn felt a rush of rage.

"Don’t call me that. I am unit FN-2187," he snarled, wrists straining against the manacles, all the more frustrating because the anger gave him no rush of power, no ascension into that river of Force where he was connected to all around him. He was still stuck in this bed, half-healed and half-drugged. He said through gritted teeth. "What have you done to me?"

For a moment a wrinkle appeared in Poe's brow, and then he nodded and waved his hand at the room at large. "Little something in the air. Our General's Force-sensitive too, and she's had the doctors here test combinations of drugs on her for years. She always suspected that one day we'd have… uh," he shrugged, "a guest like you." He paused. "So will you wear the hood?"

"No.”

"The alternative is that we sedate you and carry you there on a gurney."

"And my answer is still _no_."

Two more guards, for a total of six, were called to hold him down while a doctor – assisted by the nurse with the bandaged nose – injected him in the arm and lifted him onto a stretcher. Then there were more straps across his chest, arms and legs, and he was taken from the ward staring at the ceiling. Through the haze of the drug he lost count of the changes in the lights, or the lefts and rights they passed under no matter how he tried to focus, and all the sounds around him seemed to be bubbling through water. He drilled himself silently, _pay attention, FN-2187. Find a purpose. Help the Order._ But as soon as those self-made commands slipped from his thoughts, the voices they left behind whispered _Finn_ again. Finn. Finn. A lazy, shortened name, a mistake, a lie, but it was the only echo that stuck around when all else fell silent. 

The new cell was quieter than the medical bay, deeper underground, and each wall was barely long than he was tall. There was a bench with a thin mattress too short for him to stretch out because of the latrine at the foot of the bed. The door was inches thick, with a closed slot at his eyeline and at the bottom. Apart from the lock, it was not so different from the guest room he had been granted on Sacorria, back before this whole mission began. 

He wondered for the first time if Rey had got the map back to the Order. He couldn't imagine she'd failed at anything she'd ever put her mind to. But if there was any chance the droid had got away from her, maybe the Resistance already had the map. Maybe they were going to bring Luke Skywalker here to the base. Maybe Finn's job wasn't over. He had to be ready.

He wouldn't leave here until he knew for sure his mission was complete. He had to make up for his mistakes, for letting Poe get the best of him, for failing to kill him on Takodana. And if the mission was already complete? Then he had to get back. Get a new mission. Fulfill his purpose. 

He had to be a good soldier. 

Had to figure out what that was without the First Order to tell him.


	7. Fission

The back of the door to the physician's office was polished steel. Over the edge of the desk, Sno could see Rey's face looking back at her in the smudged shine of the metal. She looked smug, as if she was the one who had dared Sno to come here. Cheeky bitch. Sno smiled at her, and Rey smiled back.

The physician took several swabs and two vials of Sno's blood. She asked her a very long list of questions about her medical history. Finally she flicked through several pages on the screen in her hand. "I can't find any record of your excision."

"I haven't had an excision."

Sno knew that all female-bodied stormtroopers had the surgery after they went through puberty and their skeletons had finished growing, as any earlier could interfere with normal hormonal development. She'd read about it in one of the many military manuals she studied. 

The physician raised an eyebrow. "It's required," she said. 

Sno shrugged. "It wasn't required for me."

The physician gave a low rumble. "Alright, I'll give you a shot that will last six months, but you really should talk to your commander about getting it done."

Sno tried to imagine talking to Kylo Ren about why she needed to have part of her womb removed. It did not seem like a conversation that was likely to go calmly. She'd see if she could get another shot in six months, if she needed it. For the first time in ten years, it occurred to her that Kylo didn't need to know about every move she made. 

The physician gave her a small injection in her upper arm and then a medical certificate to join the Network. For just a moment as she filled out the application, Sno had the urge to write her call-sign as 'Rey'. 

 

\---[]---

 

Finn slept as best he could in the cell with the painkillers fading and the low lights in the ceiling that never changed. Meals were delivered through the slot in the door about when twinges of hunger in his stomach told him it was time for food, but apart from that there was no way to measure time. Nothing to do but meditate and think.

In the quiet, steel and concrete box, his mind was again and again drawn back to the vision he’d had in the cellar on Takodana. Much of it he remembered only as a tangled nightmare, but sooner or later he would always spiral into visions of TD.

He had not forgotten her over the last nine years, not even for a moment. In the Resistance prison, the memories became more and more vivid as he dwelled on them. How he’d knelt in the sparring hall with her withered body clutched underneath him. He’d screamed for a medic, for anybody, to come and help him. But there had been only silence. His classmates lay around, insensible and sprawled where they had fallen. Some would not regain consciousness for a day or two. The rest of the academy – further from the epicentre, and not so sensitive to the Force – were only just rousing themselves from their trance.

He remembered how he felt for TD’s pulse and, finding nothing, hauled her up into his arms and ran through the corridors of the school. Her skin was dry and cracking, catching against his clothes. She was oozing slow blood from her nose and the folds of her joints. There was a metallic stench of lightning in her hair. In the medical wing he put her on a bed and her eyes stared at the bright lights above, her pupils cloudy and blown wide. He broke open a cabinet, found a vial of adrenaline and with shaking hands filled a needle. He ripped TD’s shirt in the middle and raised the needle above her chest to stab her in the heart when a doctor and two Knights of Ren found him and pulled him away, pinning him to the cold, tiled floor.

“What happened?” someone kept shouting.

He choked, “I killed her. I killed her.”

They put him in the bad box for several days, in the darkness without a bed. It was the where they put cadets when they misbehaved or lost control. He’d been punished here before, for helping TD cheat on tests or for stealing food from the storerooms. For several days he was left there with the smell of TD’s blood on his shirt, the ozone stink of lightning, and his own musk of sweat and exhaustion. At last the door opened and a captain from the Justice Division stood there as he blinked, eyes adjusting to the light.

They took him to an office. “It’s alright, FN-2187,” the captain had said. “You’re not in trouble.”

“You did the right thing,” the tutor behind the desk said. “The cameras and witnesses all agree. You likely saved most of your classmates from serious injury. A great deal of work and money has gone into this program. It could all have been lost because of one mistake.” There was a pause, and then the tutor asked, “Why weren’t you as affected as the others?”

FN-2187 swallowed. His throat was dry and his voice was a soft rasp after days of solitary confinement. “I don’t know, sir.”

In the concrete box under the Resistance base, Finn lay on the bed and covered his face with his arm to block out the dim light. He exhaled slowly. They had told him to be proud of himself, for serving the First Order in an emergency situation. They had told him there had been no other way to stop TD; that her body had become a conduit for the dark side of the Force and she would not have stopped even if she had been unconscious. But it all felt wrong to FN-2187, and it still felt wrong to Finn now. 

Could he have saved her, if he’d known what he knew now, if he’d been graduated and officiated as a knight, if he’d been stronger and cleverer? Surely. Surely he could have saved her.

In the box, there was nothing to do but think about it.

 

\---[]---

 

Sno borrowed a tablet from the communal stores and checked the Network while Kylo Ren was in the war-room with Hux and two other generals. By his mood when he’d gone in there, it would be hours before they came out again. 

She wasn’t supposed to know what the meeting was about, but she’d heard a few snatches of conversation when she’d bade her master farewell. Hux planned to use Starkiller a second time, this time to destroy the Resistance base. It would be a costly move. The first blast on the Hosnian system had damaged the internal structure of the experimental weapon, and though repairs were almost finished and the engineers were attempting to redesign for the next shot, they wanted more time to test their improvements before risking another blast. Shifting Starkiller to a new solar source would also require significant resources. Hux thought it was important to strike now, while their enemy was recovering from their last attack. Others in the First Order wanted to wait. But Kylo in particular disagreed. The resistance had something he needed.

The indexes of the Jedi archives that matched the map to Luke Skywalker had been scrambled; when he accessed the First Order's records of them, Kylo had found thousands of files on millions of star systems, with no way to put them together. He didn’t know whether it had happened before or after the archives had been retrieved, but either way the result was the same. The map was useless in anyone’s hands. Unless the Resistance had a working copy of the archives, or the missing elements of the map itself. Hence why Kylo did not want the Resistance destroyed.

Sno hoped Kylo won the argument. She did not want to be scolded again for failing to maintain her mental defenses when the destruction of another planet rippled through the Force.

Alone in their quarters, she connected the tablet to the Network server and provided her thumbprint. Doing something in secret made her feel like she was slipping into Rey's skin and leaving Sno behind. An image of Rey's face flashed up, confirming her identity, and a moment late the ship's computer presented her with a scrolling grid of images. They were all near-identically framed portraits of humans and the handful of other species the Order allowed to serve in their ranks. These were Network users who were active on board the Finalizer. 

She had never seen so many faces within the military before. Not just in one place together, but maybe even the sum total of all the faces she had known over the last ten years. Faces were the domain of outsiders and enemies, or of private rest times. Their wanton display by insurgents and in occupied territories had always seemed careless to Rey, if not outright rude. But these faces were on display specifically as lewd advertisements. Rey could see what Finn meant about some people joining the Network just to look at the pictures. 

The portraits were framed almost identically by Network requirements, evenly spaced so that only the heads and necks were in view and facing directly into the lens. But they were not quite the emotionless identity pictures from official dossiers. The people her gaze roamed over had a spark of self-awareness in them: a tight-lipped smile here, a raised eyebrow there, a head tilted back a little, or a nervous flash of teeth. She could imagine the stromtroopers and their officers acknowledging a camera lens for the first time in years or decades of constant surveillance. Given a moment to present themselves to unknown partners on the other end of the system. Perhaps egged on by ill-conceived advice from their barrack-mates, they seemed self-conscious and cocksure all at once. 

Looking at the faces was like running her hands across the sleeves in some rich stranger's wardrobe, relishing the momentary brush across her skin of fabrics she would never wear. She lingered on each face, unsure what she was looking for, whether she should simply reach out to as many as possible or whether she would simply know the right person when she saw them. Each soldier had a string of twenty-five characters below their portrait, which she knew was used to communicate what the writer wanted from a partner. Because she was outside the social circles of stormtroopers she could not read the abbreviations and codes. Her own image – Rey's image – had nothing written underneath at all. 

The psychologist who had approved her application had mentioned that a number followed by a closed bracket was the age of the soldier. Conscious that her time was limited by the war-room drama carrying on somewhere in the depths of the Finalizer, she decided simply to request further conversation with those who were as close to her own age as possible. Half an hour later, she took a transit pod through the ship to a small Network Room close to the main communal areas and found herself face to face with a stranger. He had been the only one who had responded positively to her halting messages. 

Sno – no, Rey, she reminded herself – realised what she'd done as soon as he walked through the door. She had chosen this stormtrooper because he looked like Finn. He turned out to be a good half a foot taller than her, far taller than Finn, his body stretched into a wiry stature and his gait a laid-back slouch. His face was thinner and more angular too. But the blood still rushed to her cheeks as she looked him up and down. She thought she had controlled her feelings towards Finn. She was suddenly nauseous with guilt at doing anything behind her master's back, and especially of seeking something solely for her own pleasure. It was not proper for a Knight. She was betraying everything she believed in, everything she'd worked for ten years. Just because she couldn’t control her feelings for a dead Knight she’d known for less than three days. 

"You alright, Cadet?" the stormtrooper asked, his hand hovering above the pad to close the door. 

She took a breath. She was Rey, and Rey did not have rules or ambitions. Rey could do as she wished.

The stormtrooper was businesslike at first, discussing what they both wanted out of their time together as if taking orders for dinner. He was annoyed when he learned this was her first time on the Network, muttering "I don't think I can handle that kind of responsibility.” He relented to stay when she said she would not be angry if he decided to leave halfway through because he wasn’t enjoying himself (she thought she probably would, but she was used to hiding her anger). After some awkward shuffling he leaned in and kissed her.

Rey felt as if she had stepped into a furnace. The hairs on her arms stood on end, her lungs filled to bursting, and a sweet throb stuttered deep in her belly. Guilt gave a last gasp of protest and then gave in to the thrill of the unknown. Her head pounded with shock at the strangeness of skin to skin contact, but then she closed her eyes and imagined it was Finn instead of a stranger and the growing fear evaporated. She felt the Force as strong as it had ever been. It was such a storm inside her that she had to pull up caution to shield her mind in case Kylo Ren sensed her emotions from the far end of the Finalizer. It was so difficult not to just fall into the stranger’s arms.

The stormtrooper led the way, and talked a lot, filthy phrases and words she only half-understood but enjoyed the sound of. He seemed concerned when she was quiet so she made sure to talk back, to show she was keeping up with a smile, though it felt strange to be creating this time together on equal terms. She was so used to obedience and silence. It took all her willpower to be loud, to be open. She loved the taboo of it. She had never heard so many tones in her own voice before, never realised she could make so many noises, that her body would respond with such murmurs and moans. And she had never been touched, just for the sake of touching, especially never by someone who wanted to touch her. 

He finished before her and after a spasm went still, propped up on his elbows above her. "I can keep going, do something different for you—" he gasped into her ear. She was throbbing somewhere deep in her pelvis, beginning to get a little sore, but in a way that was fascinating rather than uncomfortable. It was all so new.

"No, it's alright," she said, and gave in to the urge to touch his cheek. His skin was damp and burning hot. "That was a nice. I'm happy."

He laughed and rolled onto his back, flopping his hands onto his chest. He looked at her. "You're really old to join the Network, you know. I thought most people knew whether they liked sex or not by your age. You sure you're alright with this?"

"I wasn't allowed before now," she explained. "I met someone who said to join anyway."

"Why weren't you allowed?"

"Maybe that's not the right way to say it. I just wasn't told I could," she stared up the ceiling. "It made me wonder what else I hadn't been told."

"Well, if you're going to be transgressive, this is the place to do it," he said, looking at her. "You want to know some of the slang?"

"The slang?" 

He told her that the twenty-five characters on a person's Network profile were used to communicate any number of things. Many were condoned: sexual desires and identities and skills the soldier wanted to advertise. But there were also requests laced with prohibitions. Very often they were pleas for news from certain sectors or regiments, from stormtroopers whose friends or training mates had been on missions for months. Common soldiers were not allowed personal communications or news about how the war was going in distant parts of the galaxy. Other meetings were more prosaic: the exchange of illicit substances, entertainment records and other contraband. Everyone had their vices to satisfy and the Network could get you anything if you had something to trade in return. But the Network even hosted forums for the politics of the First Order, in which pairs of groups of people met up not for sex but simply to talk. The buying and selling of gossip and blackmail material was particularly popular – and particularly dangerous – for more senior users of the Network, many of whom had to navigate the treacherous asteroid field of the officer classes. Some stormtroopers made a career out of meeting up with officers in the Network, seducing them into post-coital conversation and then selling their secrets to other officers for favours and contraband.

Of course, all the Network's meetings were recorded, but many used fake avatars and images to hide themselves from investigation, or were adept at handing off packages without the cameras noticing, or had methods of scrambling or silencing the microphones with all manner of electronic tricks or just well-placed pieces of cloth. People still got caught (the stormtrooper hastened to explain to Rey, chivalrously steering her away from temptations). If they were lucky, the consequences were minor – demotion, solitary confinement, or re-education. If they were unlucky, if one of the their peers didn't like what they were doing – rival drug sellers, senior officers whose secrets were being spread – they might at least get away with only a non-permanent injury. But everyone had heard of someone from another squadron who'd been using the Network for who-knew-what (the rumours were limited only by imagination) and who simply disappeared one day. The First Order dealt plainly with those whose transgressions were considered incurable. 

Rey listened with her arms wrapped around her knees and her eyes wide. For ten years she had believed everything they said was good about the First Order. People were different in the Order, because they were raised from infancy to be obedient, to work for the benefit of all. That was why the First Order was winning the war for the galaxy. That was why they _deserved_ to win the war. But this naked, over-chatty stranger was telling her it wasn't true. 

Despite all the training, all the surveillance, people didn't behave like Sno Ren was supposed to behave. They were more like she imagined Rey. They did things for themselves. She couldn’t believe that everyone was like that. Maybe the cadets and _maybe_ the stormtroopers and a _few_ of the officers. But not the higher ranks. It wasn’t as if Kylo did things for selfish reasons. He was committed to a truth, a calling greater than himself, even above the First Order. And even those in the system, the ones in charge, they got there because they were the right people with the rights ideas. Hux didn’t murder billions in the Hosnian system for his own reasons. It was for the security of their future. It was for the Order.

What was it all for if not the Order?

 

\---[]---

 

“Mind if I sit down?” Poe asked, the first time he visited Finn in the new cell. He was carrying a tray with breakfast in a variety of washed-out, mess-hall colours, and still leaning on a crutch.

Finn folded his arms and said nothing. Poe waited until the heavy clunk of the magnetic locks had ceased and then hobbled across the room. He lowered himself onto the bench beside Finn. In sync with him Finn got up and stood against the next wall, so that they both had to turn their heads to look at each other.

Poe pushed the tray of food closer. “Eat, man. It’s the same slops they feed the rest of us.”

Finn didn’t answer. He was not going to let Poe draw him in, was not going to open a single crack to let Poe worm his fingers into his head. 

Poe pulled a thin, green vegetable off the corner of the tray and nibbled at it. At last without warning he said, “She killed my buddy, you know.”

It was an open enough statement to make him curious, but Finn was offended at this attempt to garner his sympathy. “You become a soldier, you could die in the war.”

Poe swallowed his small mouthful of stolen breakfast, staring at the floor. “Most droids don’t volunteer,” he muttered, wiping his fingers off on the sleeve of his other arm. He shrugged. “That never really sat right with me. They say you can’t free a droid. Even if you get one that thinks it wants to leave you, they’d be picked up and reprogrammed as soon as they rolled outside, or some trader would stick a restraining bolt on ‘em and then they’d be worse off than they were with you. That’s how we justify it to ourselves, anyway. But it never sat right with me. They should have a choice to join a war like ours.”

Finn was beginning to see the shape of Poe’s complaint. “Someone killed BB-8?”

“Yeah,” Poe looked at him. “Your friend the Sith apprentice. The one who said she was _his_ friend. All we found was pieces of him on Takodana.”

Finn thought of the cheeky little droid who’d been clever enough to keep both him and Rey at arms length of its precious cargo. He wondered what had happened – had BB-8 gone through with its threat to self-destruct, had Rey found a way to get the map with brute force, or had she destroyed the droid just to keep it from bringing information back to the Resistance? He tried to shake off a stab of regret that she had deemed any of the second two options necessary. At least this meant the map was in safe hands. Finn hadn’t had the strength for killing and look where that had got him.

“BB-8 was just doing his best,” Poe shook his head.

“So are we all,” Finn said before he could stop himself. He looked back towards the steel door before Poe could raise his head to meet his eye. He heard the scrape of the plate on the bench.

“You sure you don’t want to eat some of this before I steal it all?”

“I’m not going to eat out of your hand,” Finn spat back.

Poe left him in the cell to have his breakfast in peace. Finn gulped down every bite and began to plan out the daily exercises and meditation he was going to need to keep his body and mind ready. Sooner or later, the Resistance would make a mistake, or the base’s security would be compromised by an outside force. When that happened he would be ready.

Everyday he repeated his routines: wake, breakfast, stretches, meditation, exercise, cooldown, more meditation. He had to draw it all out until the second meal, after which he allowed himself to sleep until it could begin all over again. He would add five more push-ups every day until his arms were shaking, or move further through the empty spaces of his meditative world. Any spare time left over was increasingly more painful as his thoughts drifted wherever they wanted. He thought of Stormtroopers who hadn’t made it through basic training, and of classmates at the academy who’d burned out. Some had raged at the First Order in a fit of madness and been taken away in handcuffs, others had just turned catatonic and never spoken again. He'd always viewed them with a kind of second-hand shame. He'd always thought he was better than them. But now he wondered if he'd just been lucky all these years, faking his success in the trials and tests. Perhaps he'd never really been suited for field work. He should have stayed on Sacorria as a recruiter where he could at least be of some use to the Order. 

He thought of TD and his vision. He trusted the Force enough to suspect he’d seen the truth. He and the dead girl had had parents, they’d had a life outside the First Order. A life without purpose, a life in the anarchic, existential world outside the rank and file. But for TD at least, it might have been a longer life. And he wouldn't have been a failure who got himself captured by the dysfunctional Resistance. He closed his eyes and tried to remember what their parents’ faces had looked like in the vision. Through the haze of injury and drugs that had clouded his thoughts afterwards he could blurrily picture the man, a father, his features twisted in desperation and despair. But Finn couldn't remember the mother's face. The one who had handed them over the First Order. Why had she done it? What had they offered her? Or had they threatened to take something away from her? Did they tell her what would happen to her children? 

Had either of his parents been Force Sensitive? Had the Force warned them that TD would die in an agony, crippled by the dark side and murdered by her own brother? Did that make it easier to give their children away, knowing they were both doomed to darkness? 

Finn had to stop thinking about TD. He wished he had someone to talk to. Someone who would tell him what to do. How to think.

Poe visited. “Did anyone tell you about what happened to the Hosnian system?”

Finn said nothing. Poe told him, and Finn gave him no reaction. Poe left him to his thoughts.

He went through his routines each day until the days became weeks. Hold the stretch a little longer. Five more push-ups. An extra verse of mantras during meditation. When he ran out of mantras he listened for any sound outside the walls. There was only the silence. He listened harder, though he wished he could just focus inwards. Nothing but the echoes of his own, slight movements as he shifted where he sat. He might as well be the only sentient creature on a barren planet in a scorched system in an empty arm of the galaxy. The Resistance might be bombed to ashes right above his head and he might never know until the meals stopped coming and he starved to death. 

Finn realised he’d broken out in a sweat and his heart was beginning to race.

Poe visited again. “Do you want anything? They said you can’t have a holovid for security purposes, but there’s plenty of games I could bring down that don’t have any metal parts. You ever played triga?”

“I’m not interested,” said Finn. “I don’t need you thinking I owe you anything.”

“Alright. Offer still stands,” Poe shrugged. “How’s the food compared to back home? Does the First Order do special lunches at the end of the week?”

Finn tilted his head and looked him in the eye. “You’re running out of small talk that isn’t classified above my head, aren’t you?”

Poe left. Alone again.

Finn thought of sitting with KL-2266 in their bunks during rare rest hours. They'd massage each others' muscles and breathe through the headaches from the Force exercises. Stix told him that before she came to the academy, she lived in a barracks near a wing of officers’ quarters. The officers used to play music sometimes. It was supposed to be against the rules, but she used to hear it when they left the door open. Most stormtroopers made music of some kind – chants and rhymes without much melody, and lots of rhythm slapped and tapped out on whatever surfaces were available. But Stix had heard different songs, songs with vocals that rose and fell in ways FN-2187 and the other academy students had never heard. She sung to herself sometimes, just the faint and broken memories of those songs. She was embarrassed about it in front of the others, but she let FN-2187 listen when it was just the two of them at the end of a long day. Her voice was high and sweetly pitched. He joined in once he knew the words, with all the leaps and croaks of a boy on the cusp of puberty, and she smiled at him through the song. In the weeks after TD's death, she was the only one who asked him what was wrong, why he wasn't himself. She was the only one who asked, "Eight-seven, what can I do?" He hadn't had the words to explain, but she'd sat with him, and sung to him until he fell asleep on her bed.

Finn sung to himself in the cell. _“The person, the person, the person with weapons. You should be afraid of the person with weapons. You should be afraid.”_ His voice was so different now he was grown. He wasn’t sure if he’d got the tune right, and soon ran out of lyrics. He realised it had been years since he’d heard Stix sing anything. As they’d got older, she had taken more responsibility for the class, tried to uphold the leadership that FN-2187 had refused after TD’s death. She trained harder. She joked around less. She spent more time with the others and less with FN-2187. He missed her.

He dug his fingers into the side of his head. He needed to feel the Force again. If he could just find a way to escape the drugs in the air, he could contact Stix and she would come for him. The First Order might have a policy against rescuing prisoners, but Stix would find a way. 

He had to escape before the silence drove him mad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lyrics to Stix’s song are directly lifted from Ann Leckie’s _Imperial Radch_ trilogy, as I couldn’t resist using one of Breq’s songs given the parallels between the Radch and the First Order. I cannot recommend this trilogy highly enough so if you enjoy diverse post-gender interstellar science fiction please rush out and find yourself a copy immediately.


	8. Fusion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Trigger warning:** If Reylo is triggering for you, please note that “unrequited Rey/Kylo Ren” has been added to the tags. There is nothing explicit between them in this or any future chapters but the pairing is a plot thread from here onwards.

Sno went back to the Network and became Rey again every chance she had. As soon as Kylo was in the war-room, or waiting for a chance to speak with Snoke, or even just taking a different sleep shift from her, she snuck out.

Her partners were different every time. There was a thickset stormtrooper fresh out of graduation who lifted her onto the bed with only one arm around her waist. An impatient officer with grey at his temples and a blankness in his gaze as if he couldn’t even see her face while he fucked her. A soft-spoken women from the special forces with a gentle tongue and scars on her cheeks. A golden-skinned soldier from a species who turned out to be only superficially similar to human anatomy.

Sno felt that as Rey, she was learning more than she had in years. She felt like a furnace was burning hotter and hotter in her belly until she was afraid she’d scorch everything she touched. She was afraid of how often her escapades occupied her thoughts and how little guilt she felt about lying to her master.

And yet it was the times between the Network that she was most serene. She had never realised that for as long as she could remember she had been twisted and strung tight as a garrote. Strung up by her own loneliness and her sense of inadequacy. Now at last she was unwinding. She felt stronger and faster on the short missions with her master. She was quicker and crueler in the sparring ring, keeping up with Kylo more often than he expected. And she was more in tune with the Force than ever. It hummed in her blood wherever she went and reacted to her as easily as air filling her lungs. It was as if the hunger for a connection, for companionship, had been so constant and bottomless that she had not even known she was starving until now. Or as if there had been a scream of tearing metal in her ears all this time, years and years, the same pitch and tone so loud and unchanging that she had never known it was there until it was gone. And now – in between her visits to the Network – she could hear herself think.

At least for a little while before the hunger returned, she could be alone with herself and feel peace.

 

\---[]---

 

Finn was sleeping when he heard the locks of the door. He opened his eyes and sat up in one motion. Poe was in the doorway of the cell, the crutch gone, although he was dragging his foot a little as he stepped into the room. His fingers were hooked under a tablet at his side. He had never brought anything other than food before. Nor had he ever come to visit outside waking hours. 

Finn's gaze shifted between the tablet and Poe's face. At the sight of Poe’s expression he tensed, ready for a fight. The blaster injuries he’d sustained on Takodana were now almost healed and he barely felt them twinge. At the same time his mind lurched towards the empty space where the Force was meant to be, trying to read beneath the pilot’s skin. There were shadows under Poe's eyes and his mouth was a thin, stiff line. His hair was uncombed and greasy with sweat. 

“What is it?” Finn asked, bracing his hands on the edge of the concrete bench.

The door shut behind Poe. He stood framed by its steel rectangle, in the centre of the wall, exactly opposite Finn. Finn could tell that he was bracing himself as well. At last his reluctance became clear when he spoke. "I need your help."

Finn flexed his fingers around the sharp, concrete edge. This didn't seem to be a new way to get under his skin. Poe sounded angry, and more than a little frightened. Finn shook his head. "You already know you're not going to get it."

"Just," Poe raised his hand, blinking as if trying to clear his eyes, "just let me show you something first. Then you can decide."

Finn didn't answer, which had been his response to Poe so many times that it felt an answer in itself. Poe moved across the room but didn’t try to sit beside him for once. He held out the tablet. “Watch this.”

Finn took the screen in his hands. The screen was filled with a flat image, a still moment in a video. 

“You can make it play… here,” Poe leaned forward to start the video.

“I know how to use it,” Finn snapped back. He had been trying to figure out if there were any detachable parts he could steal or if he could activate its communication programs while Poe wasn’t looking. 

“Then just watch!” Poe snarled. He straightened up and ran his hands through his hair, leaving thick locks standing up in all directions. 

“I’m watching,” Finn waved at the tablet as the crackling blur of dark shapes wobbled back and forth across the screen. “Give me some context!” 

The video was of a wide, crowded street, on some planet with no sun or moons illuminating the sky. People were running past, away from the lens and towards a distant wall, though there were fires raging there and a siren howled a warning. Finn had a crawling, sick feeling that he had seen something like this before.

“This is from an independent news-caster stationed on Thyferra,” Poe said, standing with his hands on his hips, his body angled towards the corner of the room as if he couldn’t bear to look at Finn. “The footage was sent from their ship orbiting the planet, but they weren't the ones who accessed the ship's broadcast channel. It was the First Order who leaked the video. The city you’re looking at was a stopover for a few surviving politicians and military leaders from the Hosnian system, the ones who were off-planet when it was destroyed. We picked them up and took them to safe-houses a couple of weeks ago, with the help of the city administrators. This video is a warning for other communities not to aid the Resistance.”

“What’s the warning?” Finn looked up from the screen. This was more information about the war than Poe had even hinted at during his previous visits. What had loosened his tongue? What was making his hands shake so badly?

“Just _watch_ ,” Poe ducked his head to pinch the bridge of his nose. He inhaled slowly. “Alright, long story short, they’re all dead. Everyone inside the walls of the city. They killed them all.”

Finn frowned down at the screen. The crowd continued to surge past the camera. People continued to scream. He didn’t understand Poe’s reaction. Distasteful as it was, massacres of insurgent villages and sometimes whole cities were necessary deterrents to maintain peace and security. The destruction of the Hosnian system – billions of lives – was surely worse in Poe’s view. Finn struggled to justify it even in his own mind. But what was special about this city on Thyferra, and these deaths?

Then out of the crowd rose a man, jerking like a fish on a hook and Finn’s mind was thrown back to his vision in the cellar on Takodana. In the vision he had been in the crowd and the screams had been all around him and just as he was seeing on the tablet now, the man was twisted and – his limbs were twisting off, oh Force help him – blood bursting against the star-filled night – his eyes popping from their sockets like fruit from its shell – what was happening to him – who was _doing that to him_ –

Finn felt his breath quicken as the camera turned around to face the oncoming crowd. The last of the sobbing, panicked civilians stumbled past the lens and what remained were five figures clad in black, walking at a steady march. Whoever was behind the camera had begun to swear in their own language. Or perhaps it was a prayer.

Finn saw the figures as they walked into the flickering light of a city lamp. He saw beneath their hoods. The leader raised her hand, and the others followed in perfect sync.

He put the tablet face-down on the bench beside him and rested his hands on his knees. He stared at his feet as he listened to the last of the screams, and then the feedback screech as the video ended violently. Poe was standing above him.

“You know what that was.”

“No,” Finn said, not looking up.

Poe sounded like an engine working up to break atmosphere. “Every other record from the city shows the same thing. Those – whoever they are – they were the only people the First Order sent. They blocked the gates and pulled evacuation ships right out of the sky. They killed everyone. They killed seven thousand civilians in fifteen hours without weapons or visible tech. Kids and babies. People in hospitals, people surrendering, people climbing the burning walls to get away, all of them.”

Finn said nothing.

“Dammit, give me something! How did they do it?” Poe was on the verge of spitting. “Who were they?

Finn looked up at him at last. “They’re my classmates.”

He’d seen their faces. KL-2266 had been at the front. His friend with the sweet songs. Seven thousand people. 

“What?” Poe’s nose wrinkled up and his lips drew back from his teeth. One of his hands made a twitching, helpless motion and then returned to his hip as his brows relaxed a little. “From the Order’s new Sith academy? They’re Force users?”

“What did you think they were?” Finn glowered. “How else do you think they could do something like that with their bare hands?”

Poe shook his head. “No. No way, man,” he waved his hand across the space between. “That kind of power is the stuff of myths and bullshit. Even Kylo Ren can’t do anything like that. A bunch of kids just out of their teens aren’t… they aren’t whatever _that_ was.”

Finn pressed his palms together and gripped his linked fingers until it hurt. He pressed his knuckles to his mouth. “Stix wouldn’t do this. I know her. She wouldn’t… she never liked waste.”

“Well that’s what your lot are capable of, aren’t they?” Poe strode away from him and then back again, his limp worse than before. He looked at Finn for several seconds. “No. No, you’re not like that, Finn. What’s different about them?”

Finn winced. “None of it makes sense. I don’t know.”

“You do!”

“We never – it’s just a guess. The way they moved. All in sync with each other. I don’t know anything for sure.”

“Just tell me!” Poe threw his arm out towards the door. “Forget your vow of silence for one minute. Give me something!”

Finn gritted his teeth. His skull was full of the smell of lightning and bile, and voices speaking in a perfect chorus, _“Stop me, Eight-Seven! Please, stop me!”_ He couldn’t make sense of it all at once. But still he thought there was a shape to it all, just out of his reach. He said slowly, “What you saw on that video, it never worked before. It was something we experimented with, a technique using the dark side of the Force, but we… _I_ couldn’t make it work,” Poe didn’t interrupt this time, though his heavy breathing was audible when Finn paused. “In the Academy we were already in and out of each other’s minds all the time. The theory was that with sufficient unity, two Force users – or more – could combine their strength. Not just working together – working as _one mind_. The sum would be far greater than the parts. Sometimes we’d manage it for a few minutes at most, and it was exhilarating to wield that much power, it was—” he remembered the blood and the screaming on the video, “—impossible. The combined entity was unstable. The two minds always fought for dominance. None of us could bend our friends to our will for long, and none of us could be subdued, it was too awful, the subconscious always struggled until the entity collapsed and we were separated again. They gave up the experiments in the end because it was taking a toll on us. They didn’t want to break our minds.”

Poe was silent for some time. “Apparently they didn’t give it up,” he said at last. “Apparently they figured it out while you were busy chasing a droid on Jakku.”

Finn flinched at the loathing in his voice. Poe’s expression softened. He glanced around as if to check they were alone despite the winking camera in the corner. They both knew General Organa was probably watching right now. He said quietly, "Tell me how to stop them."

Finn held Poe’s gaze. “There’s no fighting them,” he said softly. “You’re right. I’m not like them. I’m a dwarf star and they’re a supernova. If they come for you next, the Resistance cannot win.”

 

\---[]----

 

Poe left him after that, though Finn didn’t know what he was thinking as he limped out of the door and let the guards shut it behind him.

Finn couldn't sleep for the rest of the night, couldn't eat the next morning, couldn't even find the strength to get up and do his exercises. His breakfast sat by the door going cold and smelling of overboiled carbohydrates. He was trying to piece it all together. 

A single mind had controlled those five Knights on Thyferra. And the best leader among them was KL-2266. If anyone was in charge of the entity, it was her. She had always been brutal in a fight, and she’d been hard as hell on their classmates if she thought they were slacking off. Yet she’d always insisted that when they became Knights, they would be weapons of precision. Stix believed that productivity bred happy societies, and happy societies could be controlled. Productivity was reduced when buildings were destroyed and people died as collateral damage. So the Stix that Finn knew wouldn’t kill thousands of civilians without flinching. The Stix that Finn knew might have made an example of the city’s leaders, would no doubt have been cruel, but she would not have been _wasteful_. 

He went through every little thing Stix had said to him since they graduated, every little hint about the work she and the other new Knights were assigned. While Finn was preparing for his job recruiting Force-sensitive children from the cadets, his classmates had been excited about their own missions. They were working directly under Snoke, they said, but beyond that they had told Finn nothing. He was pretty sure they didn't know more. 

The next time he'd spoken to KL-2266 had been when they'd linked minds while he was on Saccoria, when she'd given him the mission to find the map to Skywalker. He'd thought there was something strange about that conversation. Something strange about _her_. He'd assumed she was angry at him for not changing his mind about the recruiter job. Now with growing horror he began to consider that she had not been herself at all. 

“What did they do to you, Stix?” Finn whispered to the empty cell. 

If only he could talk to her again, try to push her further. Get into her head.

Finn closed his eyes and reached out into the silent, empty darkness of his own mind, trying to reach the Force, trying to find Stix out in the galaxy. 

And for the first time in weeks he felt as if maybe, just maybe, there was someone out there reaching back to him.

 

\---[]---

 

Kylo Ren and his apprentice sat on cushions at the low table eating the evening meal. Their shuttle from their latest mission had docked that morning and they had spent the day debriefing and reflecting on the week. Tomorrow they would make the short journey from the Finalizer's orbit to Starkiller Base, and Sno was looking forward to quarters with more space and a chance to go outside into fresh, atmospheric air. Starkiller was a freezing snowball over much of its surface but at least there was room to move. But Kylo had been strangely evasive whenever Sno had looked to him to confirm a detail of her report or commented on their shore leave. She did not push him or question him. She knew that his continued failure to solve the map to Luke Skywalker was taking a toll on his patience. If there was anything that should concern her, he would tell her.

As they finished, Sno took the empty dishes from the table. "Do you want tea?" she asked from the small fold-out kitchenette.

She felt a sharp flicker of anger and looked towards him. Kylo sat looking at her, his brow furrowed. Sno thought quickly and bowed her head in apology, "Master."

After a moment his anger diminished, "Yes, apprentice. Please prepare tea," and then added. "You have been different since you went on the mission alone, Sno."

Sno busied her hands at the kettle, watching the water filter slowly fill it up. At last she said, "It was a valuable period of education, Master. I look forward to learning more."

"Good."

"I'm sure I will be sent on many more missions alone once I complete the trials."

She glanced at him. He had straightened his back and relaxed his shoulders, his hands resting on the table. 

"Master?" she turned back around to face him. "You haven't spoken of the trials for some time. When will I begin them?"

"They have not been scheduled. I haven't spoken to the academy yet."

Sno felt her dinner turn to a block of ice in her stomach. It had been weeks since their last conversation about the subject. "Master, if I have failed at some aspect of my behaviour, please help me see it."

"No," he said quickly. "No, it is not your error. I have been... unreasonably distracted."

"What can I do?" she took a step away from the kettle. 

"Nothing!" he growled, and slapped one hand down on the table. She didn't flinch. "It is my failing."

Sno crossed the room and knelt beside him. She tried to remember the last time he had admitted any weakness about himself and could not think of any. "Master, tell me what you've done. I want to help."

His hands were shaking, both pressed to the table's surface as if to draw strength from it. "I have not moderated myself, apprentice. I failed to control my own emotions. It is unforgivable."

"What emotions?" she reached out towards his arm, and then realised what she was doing and put her hand on the table a foot away from his. Physical contact was still a weakness outside of the Network, was still abhorrent between them except in the most dire of situations. 

Kylo croaked, looking down at his hands, eyes narrowed. "I do not wish you to leave my side, Sno. You are... important to me."

She stared at him, a frown growing between her eyes. "Master, I... we will still see each other, I am sure."

"You do not understand," his voice was a shivering rasp now. "I need you. I need you to stay with me. It is a terrible burden for me to admit this but I cannot help it."

At last, Sno realised what it was he was trying to say. She felt a swell of nausea, pushed quickly aside to make way for sympathy. Her thoughts flickered around her skull like flare-bursts. All the tension and silence that the Network had cured had returned, locking her limbs in place. It was difficult to breathe. And beneath it all was disappointment. He had always been so strong and pure, the ultimate example for her look up this. This admission showed... weakness. Intimate relationships between fellow soldiers, those who served side-by-side in battle, were forbidden in the First Order. Kylo Ren had always followed his own doctrine and did not care much about the rules of the First Order, but she did not think his own rules allowed for... _this_.

"You understand," he said, his jaw half-locked. "Say something."

"You cannot bring yourself to let me face the trials, can you?" she asked. "You won't let me go."

"No."

"Master," she squeezed her eyes closed for a moment, opened them when vertigo swept across the darkness behind her eyelids and set her heart pounding. "We do not have to be separated. When I become a Knight..." the flashes in her skull grew faster and she tried to make a pattern from them. "The Sith and Jedi always worked in pairs. You have always said it was better. We can be together. The way you want us to be together," and at last, against ten years of conditioning and control, against her own better judgment, she reached out and put her hand on his arm. "We can be more than we are now, but you must let me fulfill my potential first. We cannot be together while I am your apprentice. Not while I obey you and serve you. It makes me look naïve and you irresponsible. But once we are equals, who would stop us? We will be partners in every way. We are the most powerful Force users in the First Order. Even the Supreme Leader will see it is for the best."

He raised his head and looked at her with wide eyes. "You mean this?" 

"Of course," she tightened her grip on his arm. How hard could it be to fulfill such a promise? She fucked strangers on the Network twice a week. It was easy and it was fun. She could enjoy whoever she wanted, whenever she wanted, couldn't she? Or could only Rey do that?

"Sno," he stared at her, and she could see the joy growing in his eyes. "This makes me very glad."

"I'm glad as well, Master," she smiled at him. It was exhausting to smile, but she made sure it reached her eyes. 

"Very well. I will speak to the Academy. We will proceed," he touched the back of her hand, where it rested on his arm. Without thinking she jerked away, folding her hands in her lap. She made sure to keep smiling.

That night she lay in her tiny bunk for a long time, staring into the darkness and wishing she could see the stars as the ship moved in its slow orbit around Starkiller Base, wondering what she had done and whether it could be undone. Whether she wanted it to be undone. A part of her wanted to stay with Kylo Ren after she became a Knight. They had worked together for so long that a life without him was daunting. They were more effective together than either apart. But another part of her, the part of her that was ambitious and proud, the part that might be Rey or might be someone else (that girl in her dream, the one who'd bled caustic white from her mouth), could not help but think that Kylo Ren was showing his faults. He had been raised as a Jedi after all, he had not been bred and shaped for this life the way she had. Sno didn't need to weigh herself down with those kind of faults. She was supposed to be better than him. She might grow to be stronger alone. Or... maybe there was another who would be stronger by her side. 

At last she slept. 

And awoke in the absolute black of the closed room, her heart pounding and her mouth stretched open as she gasped for air. 

Finn. 

Finn was alive.


	9. Centrifugal Forces

Finn came back to himself unsure of how close he had been to reconnecting to the Force. The cool brush of the universe outside these walls had been a moment’s relief, and now he was back in his body, feeling heavy and chemical after the pure energy.

He sucked in a long, slow breath. He might have hallucinated the experience in his growing desperation. But no, he could not have mistaken a delusion for the true Force. Even if he had not reach KL-2266 or any of his other classmates, he had made progress. He just had to repeat it.

Patience, evaluation, self-progression. These were principles he had been raised on. He would reach the Force again.

Poe came back with dinner that night. It was better than usual; there was real meat, planet-raised by the taste of it, marinated in a salty broth layered with droplets of orange grease. Finn was starving by now and wolfed it down in a few minutes. He didn’t even leave the bench to go stand as far away from Poe as possible. The isolation was too exhausting. He needed company again as much as he needed the food. In return, Poe did him the favour of sitting with a couple of feet of separation.

The corner of Poe’s mouth quirked in a smile as Finn tore a cut of bread into pieces and used them to wipe up the last drops of the stew.

“What’s funny?”

Poe shrugged. “That’s the first time you’ve eaten while I’m in the room. I was beginning to think maybe since you’re a super-slick Sith Knight you don’t eat like a real person, you just evaporate it with your gaze or something.”

Finn rolled his eyes. “I’m not a Sith. The Sith Order was a historical society that solely utilised the dark side. The Academy de-emphasises the separation of dark and light.”

“So you’re part Jedi as well,” Poe said.

“I’m not a Jedi and I’m not a Sith,” Finn said through his mouthful of bread. “I’m a soldier who uses the Force to fight a war.”

“You should talk to General Organa about this stuff,” Poe pulled his feet up onto the bench and rested his arms on his knees. “She’s never been trained, but she’s real into the Force lore. She gets it, you know? The way the rest of us just can’t.”

“If you put me in the same room as your General,” Finn said, “I will be obliged to kill her,” he glanced up from his food to meet Poe’s eye. His jaw had snapped shut and the tendons stood out in his neck. “Even with a low probability of success, it’s a simple risk-benefit calculation.”

He could see Poe struggling to get the rush of anger under control. After a slow breath, he spoke in a breezy voice. “She’s that big of an obstacle against the First Order, huh?”

Finn shrugged. “You tell me.”

Poe gave a half-repressed chuckle and wagged a finger at him. “Nice. Nice try.”

Finn turned his head at away so Poe wouldn’t see him smile.

“Finn, if you can really do one-fifth of what your friends were doing on Thyferra, you’d make a difference for us,” Poe said. Finn looked sharply back at him. “I mean it. You could have a place here, with the Resistance, if you wanted it.”

“Why in the Force’s reach would you think I’d want it?” Finn stared at him. “The Resistance is going to lose, Poe. The First Order is the future.”

“The future? Is that really the future you want to fight for?”

“Yes. And yes again.”

Poe grimaced. “I know you found the Thyferra massacre as horrifying as I did. I know it. I saw your face. How can you support them—”

“But it’s your fault!” Finn cried, pushing himself up and throwing his arms out. He wanted to laugh at how someone so good at their job could be so stupid. “If you didn’t fight back – if people didn’t _resist_ – there wouldn’t be massacres. If the Republic in the Hosnian system had just stopped funding rebellions in our territory, then we wouldn’t have to – to do things like this! The First Order is making planets _better_. Do you really look at the galaxy and think it’s a _nice place_?” he shook his head. “You’re not living in this concrete box, Poe. The galaxy is cruel and it’s lawless and it’s self-destructive. The First Order will bring peace. If you’d just stop fighting!”

Poe’s eyes were blown wide into points of ruddy stone. “What does it look like?”

“What?”

“Peace,” Poe tilted his head on one side. “Have you been there? Have you seen it? Did they at least paint you some colourful pictures in stormtrooper training?” he paused to let it become clear he knew Finn didn’t have an answer. “Because I’ve never seen peace carved out of anything, Finn, I’ve never seen someone burn away at the world until peace is what’s left in the ashes. I’ve only seen peace grow. It takes time. Not more guns.”

Finn shook his head and turned away. “If you really believed that, you wouldn’t pilot a damn starfighter.”

He was surprised not to get a quick retort, and turned back to see that Poe’s expression had softened. After a moment he said, “So you can really use both the dark and light side of Force, huh? They’re not really separated?”

“Nothing is,” Finn said quietly, propping his hands on his hips.

“Huh.”

There was silence for a while. Finn broke it, “You have seen me eat before, by the way. On Jakku. That was me, too.”

“Oh yeah,” Poe said, sounding genuinely surprised. “Well, I guess I still have a war to fight,” he got up with barely a wince on his bad foot and headed for the door. “You need anything for next time?”

Finn could have told him to go and stick it. But after a moment he said, “Change of clothes would be nice.”

“I’ll see what I can find,” and Poe smiled at him again. He knocked on the door to signal the guards. “You know, I don’t have to keep calling you ‘Finn’ if you don’t like the name.”

“It’s fine,” Finn shrugged. “You’re the one who gave it to me.”

“Sure. But I gave it to you when I hadn’t figured out who you were.”

Finn raised his hands helplessly. What he meant was, _'I don't really care'_ but he realised after Poe had gone that it probably looked like, _'Your guess was as good as mine.'_

 

\---[]---

 

Hux brushed past Sno in the corridor, the tails of his coat flapping and his rage so palpable that it was like a stench burning her nostrils. She glanced after him, but he had not even seen her. Around the next corner, she almost walked into Kylo Ren, if the Force hadn’t warned of the collision in time.

She stumbled into a quick box. “Apologies, Master. I did not sense you.”

“Good. I was trying to keep KL-2266 out of my head,” Kylo said. “She has been imperious today.”

“Is that why Hux is so angry?”

He looked up and down the corridor before he turned the blank mask on her. “You seem more curious these days, Sno.”

“I’ve always been curious, Master. I am more vocal,” she ducked her head, but he didn’t chastise her. In fact, she had been trying to speak up more often, especially about her own mind. Ever since Kylo's revelations to her about his feelings, she had wondered if it was perhaps _her_ fault he had delayed her examinations and wanted her to remain his partner after she became a Knight. She suspected that her obedient silence over the years had convinced him that she was of one mind with him about all things. Or even made him believe that she had no desires at all, that she wanted for nothing. So she had to be more vocal about her thoughts and intentions. That would make everything clearer between them. 

“Well, you are correct. General Hux has been denied permission a second time to use Starkiller Base against the Resistance on D'qar. KL-2266 and I are in agreement in one aspect. Hux's bloodlust can wait, completing the map to Skywalker is more important than moving against our enemy immediately. We must find out if they have a working copy of the Jedi archives.”

“How will you find out?” Sno thought it was safe to raise her head again and make eye contact with that dark visage. “You can't just storm in there. They have too many spies. Every time the First Order tries to swarm them, they’ve already moved their base.”

“It remains to be seen.”

He turned into the corridor and began to walk. Sno leaped to keep up with his long stride. “Master— may I ask— do you remember, there was an academy Knight who helped me bring you the Map?”

“I remember. The dead one.”

“Yes, him,” Sno swallowed. “A few nights ago, Master, I think I touched his mind in a dream. His living mind, I mean. Not enough to exchange a message, but… I think it’s possible he is not dead, but in Resistance captivity.”

Kylo stopped in the middle of the corridor and turned to look at her. “This is very unlikely, apprentice. There is no place the Resistance would hold a captive anywhere in this system.”

“Finn said that he was trained to communicate over much greater distances than I’d ever heard of. He said he talked to KL-2266 like that before he went on the mission,” Sno babbled. “I’ve tried to restore contact every night since then, but there’s nothing. Perhaps they’ve moved him.”

Kylo said nothing. Sno shook herself until she found could find the words to end the silence. “Master, if he’s alive, I should tell someone. The academy may wish to venture a rescue mission.”

“Impossible without stronger intel,” Kylo cut her off. “You may have heard a mere echo of his spirit, Sno. Shield yourself better when you sleep and it will not bother you again.”

 

\---[]---

 

Finn had meditated every day since Poe brought him news of the Thyferra massacre, but he had not felt the Force at all. The walls of the cell had closed in again. The claustrophobia returned, and for a day or two was worse than ever after that bare taste of freedom. He felt like a young cadet again, punished for transgressions he barely understood, or just punished to make a point to his peers. Stormtrooper cadets were never given a chance to explain themselves or appeal punishments. And back then never knew how long he'd be stuck in solitary confinement, never got an answer no mattered how hard he hammered on the door. The word of senior officers was law, even when those officers were simply mistaken or looking for someone to pick on. 

Finn had started seeing shadows in the corners of his eyes when he turned his head too quickly. He was struggling to sleep, and then felt sluggish and uncoordinated during his exercises. He had to get out of the cell. He had to get out soon, or something terrible would happen; or he would do something terrible.

There was something he was missing to reach the Force. Some relaxation technique he had forgotten, some mantra he had missed, some alignment of the planet beneath his feet or a blast of solar wind, if this planet even had a sun, or three suns, something, something, something.

Three days later Poe came back with three identical sets of clothes in one hand and breakfast in the other. “Wasn’t sure of your size,” he grinned, putting both deliveries on the bench and standing back. He leaned against the wall and tucked his hands in his pockets. “I had to find you something spare that wasn’t a uniform. Figured you wouldn’t be that comfortable with a Resistance-issued jumpsuit. This was all I could find.”

“Thank you,” Finn peeled off the short-sleeved shirt on top of the pile and held it up. It was bright orange, the colour of the Resistance pilot flight-suits, but there were no markings or emblems. At least the simple, loose trousers and sweatshirt were a neutral grey.

Poe stayed while he ate, and they talked about the lack of comforts on field missions. Poe described his struggles to shave without light or a mirror when their squadron was on alert, during the long nights of planets that rotated once a year. Finn didn’t have that problem, but they both agreed on how they never got used to the stink of comrades who had not showered in days, and the comfort of piling up with those same comrades in the backseat of a hovercraft or a small ship to keep warm when the nights were cold or the power was low. The claustrophobia faded, the shadows receded, and Finn forgot about the Force for a few minutes. 

Poe took two sets of clothes and the breakfast tray with him when he left, and just as the door closed behind him, the realisation hit Finn like a blow.

Idiot. _Idiot_. Force-suppression drugs in the air – he should have known that was a lie. Converting enough of any drug into an aerosol to fill a room would be absurdly expensive, as well as difficult to dose. It wasn’t in the air. _It was in the food_. He hadn’t eaten breakfast the day after he watched the video of the massacre. Even a few hours without the suppressant must have been enough to regain some of the Force during meditation. No wonder Poe had brought him decent stew that night for dinner; they needed to know whether he was actively avoiding the drugs or just skipping one meal. No wonder Poe was now checking in to make sure he was eating everything on his plate.

Damn it all! The drugs must be making him stupid, too.

He clenched his fists and relaxed his body again. This was good. He was making progress. He was going to get out of here.

 

\---[]---

 

It was likely that they had picked one food to drug, one they had tested to make sure the chemical did not break down rapidly in acidic or warm conditions. Finn was sure it was in the breakfast he was brought every morning, because that was the one Poe brought him, and because that was the one he had been longest from when he had connected with the Force last time. He considered the options when the slot opened the next morning. There was always a piece of thick, sour bread, a pile of some mashed, starchy vegetable and a few slices of bitter, preserved fruit. Sometimes Poe had brought him some salty condiment for the bread or on one occasion a boiled egg, but none of those elements were regular and therefore unlikely to be laced with anything.

The mashed vegetable was heavily seasoned with spices. It was the most likely candidate. Finn ate his breakfast walking a loop of the room that day. While he was directly underneath the video camera, he scooped most of the vegetable into his hand and then into the toilet, angling his body so it blocked the camera’s view.

He made sure to show the camera he was eating the scraps of the vegetable. If he was right, then by tonight he should be able to glean the barest sense of the Force. And if they got suspicious and came in to inject him directly… well, at least he’d still know he was right.

He waited until just before dinner to begin meditating.

It was hard to get his heart rate to slow. He was shaking with excitement at the thought of feeling the Force again, though it came through a mesh of fear. If he was wrong, the disappointment would be crushing.

He breathed deep, over and over. Slowly his brain stopped chattering and his blood stopped pulsing too-hot in his veins.

He reached out.

He could feel it. The Force was there, and it was talking to him at last. He came back to his body after only a few seconds, exhausted by the effort. He sat back against the side of the bench, heaving for breath.

It was a start.

 

\---[]---

 

Poe visited three times that week. They talked about their childhoods mostly, both of them avoiding more sensitive – classified – topics. They had very different stories to tell, but Finn was glad for the conversation. Even without directly mentioning specifics of the war, however, one thing had become very clear: Poe believed in what he was fighting for. He really loved General Organa. And yet he still questioned the Resistance. He seemed to genuinely want to talk to Finn about whether the Resistance was partially responsible for the First Order's destruction of the Hosnian system, and whether sending volunteers to battle really was the best way to fight the First Order, or whether they should be training them to become politicians and peaceful activists. That's what Luke Skywalker had come to believe, Poe said, though he'd only met the man when he was a lot younger. Skywalker and the General used to fight about it; Luke thought progress could only come through peace, and Leia thought violence could only be halted by a proportional response. The Jedi and the General were twins, and evenly matched in almost every way, Poe reported to Finn. Maybe that was part of why Luke never came back after the Padawan massacre.

"What massacre?" Finn asked.

"You know. It was only about ten years ago, you must have known. Kylo Ren became a pawn of Snoke and turned against Skywalker. Ren destroyed the new Jedi temple and killed all his fellow students, right down to the toddlers. Only Skywalker survived."

Finn had been taught that the New Jedi Order hunted down and tried to wipe out the Knights of Ren, who were scholarly Force worshipers rather than active users of the Force, and that Kylo Ren turned against them to save the unarmed scholars. It was only after this battle that the Academy was formed with the help of the First Order, militarised to defend the way of the Knights. No one have ever mentioned any dead children. But the Academy had been around well before the year Poe had given - Finn had been nine when he was recruited, and the school was already at least two or three years old by the time he arrived. He supposed Poe could have been lied to, except that Poe had been alive and already fighting for the Resistance when he claimed the massacre happened, which meant _he_ had to be lying. Finn didn't like to think that Poe was lying to him. He tried to change the subject. 

“Have there been any other attacks?” he asked during the third visit. “Like the Thyferra massacre?”

Poe shook his head. “Not that we know of.”

“Maybe it was a field test,” Finn said quietly. “They might not be able to carry it out again. Maybe… maybe Stix and the others were injured by maintaining their connection for that long.”

“That would be comforting,” Poe said, watching his face to gauge his reaction. Finn kept his expression neutral.

He had been avoiding the mashed vegetable for six days now, but the Force was returning to him only in increments. He’d eaten a little each day to try and mollify anyone who was watching him on the camera. Even that small dose must be interfering with the Force.

On the seventh day, he sat down to meditate. Deep breath, slow exhale.

He reached out.

The glow of hundreds of people spread out around, each of them moving or breathing in the base above, on the other side of these concrete walls. Beyond that his perception met a great ceiling of thick grass above his head, and beyond the grass were alien trees. His spirit pushed out further until he could no longer resolve individual points of life but only the hum of the planet as it spun on its axis.

It was all much, much weaker than usual. It was like looking at the world through a thick layer of canvas, images made up of only vague shapes and bright lights. But it was there.

Finn stretched his mind out further. He became a tiny thread of Force, calling for Stix. But his perception petered out before it reached the edge of the barren system in which this planet stood. He made himself molecule-thin as he strained out and out, but he couldn’t find her. Either he wasn’t strong enough yet, or KL-2266 was not in the mental state to hear him and reach back. It was like using an atrophied muscle, and soon he was in agony. He fell back into his body and crumpled where he sat on the floor, catching himself on his hands. He retched, but didn’t quite vomit.

He felt so close. Most of his other faculties were still crippled – he doubted he could lift so much as a sheet of paper with the Force, let alone manipulate a weaker mind – but he was sure his Force communication was returning fastest. So why hadn’t he even been able to sense Stix? Maybe his guess had been right. Maybe becoming the entity on Thyferra had hurt the young Knights. Maybe they were recuperating. Maybe they were dead.

He’d try again tomorrow. He could be patient. He had to be.

 

\---[]---

 

Poe brought two trays of breakfast the next day, and then stayed to talk and eat his own meal. Finn cursed silently. He ate slowly, musing aloud over anecdotes and hazy memories. Poe didn’t leave even though he finished his food first. Finn had a fraction of his usual power back, and sensed no suspicion or caution beneath Poe’s smile. But if he didn't eat all his food, there was no way Poe wouldn't notice.

He was sure he was close to making contact with someone outside the Resistance. He had to find a way to avoid the drug.

“You okay, buddy?” Poe asked, folding his arms. They sat on the bench side by side, the two breakfast trays between them.

“Yeah,” Finn shrugged. He shuffled around so he was facing Poe, folding one leg up on the bench. “It’s just the quiet in this room. It’s wearing at me.”

The corner of Poe’s mouth twitched and Finn felt a pulse of sympathy from his mind. The remains of the breakfast, including most of the drugged vegetables, sat in front of Finn. It felt like they were a siren going off, and any moment now Poe would hear it and call for help, hit the emergency ‘Sith’ button that was probably right outside the door.

He had to do something.

“Poe,” he raised his gaze to meet the other man’s eyes. “I can’t stay stuck in here much longer. Can’t you move me to a bigger room, or see if I can get exercise privileges? You can keep me in cuffs or whatever you need to do—”

Poe looked away, letting out a long sigh. “It’s not that simple. General Organa still considers you dangerous.”

“I am,” Finn pressed. “But I’m cooperating. Have you told her I'm cooperating?”

“For now.”

“I helped you understand the Thyferra massacre, didn’t I?”

Poe met his eye again. “Finn,” his voice was cold. “You haven’t done anything to prove you’re willing to work with us.”

Finn’s hand was resting on his own leg where it was folded in front of him. His fingers dug into his calf until it hurt. He had known it would come to this. The Resistance wasn’t stupid. That's just what they told you in the stormtrooper cadets. In the academy they told you the truth, they taught real history about why the First Order hadn’t won the war yet. Poe thought he could play Finn, woo him as a friend, bring him food and clothes as if somehow that would brainwash him into believing the Resistance cared for his wellbeing. But Finn wasn’t going to underestimate them the way they had underestimated him. This was about real power. General Organa was pragmatic and ruthless. They wanted real information from him, or they would give him nothing close to real freedom.

He had to buy more time to get the drugs out of his system.

He leaned forward and pressed his mouth to Poe’s.

Force, it felt _good_ to touch somebody again. And there was a moment where it felt like Poe was kissing him back, and then—

"Woah, what the hell?" Poe jumped up, staggered two steps away from the bench.

"It's okay," Finn raised his hand. "I'm not trying to get anything more out of you. We can just fuck."

"What? Finn, are you kidding me?" the blood had rushed to Poe's cheeks.

Finn shrugged, "Isn't that why you keep visiting?"

"No! …shit," Poe turned on the spot, his hands on his hips. He looked over his shoulder. "If I touched you I could end up in front of the tribunal for prisoner abuse. Of course I'm not— _shit_."

"Oh," Finn let himself flop back against the wall. "That's a pity."

Poe looked at him for a long time. Finally he mumbled, “I have to go.”

The door shut behind him. The remains of the drugged food sat uneaten beside Finn, yet he felt a small throb of disappoint. Part of him had hoped for something to break the monotony of the cell. He reminded himself that Poe had _shot him in the back_ , but it didn’t seem to help much. It wasn’t as if sex had ever been attached to any moral judgment for him. All of the people he’d ever slept with in his life were strangers on the Network, and he knew from experience that plenty of them were probably corrupt, or cruel, or faithless in some way. Sleeping with the enemy pilot who'd shot him in the back was at least sleeping with somebody whose name he knew.

He huffed and shoved Poe’s breakfast tray off the bench to make room for his feet. It was Poe’s loss, if he wanted to follow the rules.

 

\---[]---

 

Breathe— find a point and focus on it. Describe it. Shape it with the Force. Let thoughts slip in, but do not hold onto them. Breathe in — breathe out — slip out into the universe.

"Stix," Finn's body whispered, but his mind was already in the void. "Where are you?"

—and a thousand, billion miles away, Sno breathed in, and breathed out. She had not taken the time to meditate for some weeks. Now, seated and relaxed, she let thoughts slip in and away. She focused on a point in the centre of her skull, and shaped it with the Force, and let the energy slip in—

—and Finn stretched his spirit thinner than the pieces of an atom—

—and Sno breathed, and felt a thrum in the Force like a finger striking a stringed instrument—

—and Finn gathered the energy in his still-dampened mind—

—and Sno let the thrum vibrate down her spine, welcoming it for reasons she couldn't name—

—he could see something in the void, in the living Force, like a burning, azure sun, and he was at the end of his strength and he reached for the sun as an untethered astronaut reaching for an airlock—

—Sno opened her eyes and found all light had vanished, and there was only void, and then in the void was—

— "Find me." —

— _Finn_ —

Sno reached for him, drew him to her and tried to hold him with hands that glowed blue. But in pulling him she broke the thread. The image of Finn shimmered and collapsed into stardust in her hands, and the stardust faded into the Force. He was gone.

She found she was sitting in the respite room on Starkiller Base. The lights were still dimmed, and distantly she could hear the howling wind of a storm building outside. She gasped and stared down at her hands, the same human hands as ever, pale skin, nails bitten short, the same black rings of her tattoos on her wrists. 

"Finn."

She pressed her fists into the side of her head, a weight sinking in her stomach. "You're dead," she snarled. "You're dead. Stop haunting me. Stop it!"

But if he was dead, why had he asked her to find him? The dead were everywhere and nowhere, returned to the living Force. Finn had been calling from somewhere else.

 

\---[]---

 

Finn gasped awake, his muscles aching. He didn't know how long had he been sitting in the same position while he meditated. But he had made contact this time. Someone had heard him. But it hadn't been Stix. It hadn't been a stranger either. It had been someone... powerful, yet familiar. Someone that had tried to drag his spirit right out of his body.

Finn felt a stab of fear. It shouldn't be possible for him to talk to anyone over that distance except for his classmates. They had spent years learning to find each other over interstellar distances, years learning the delicate control needed to shape the Force into messages. A stranger shouldn't be able to recognise him, any more than a radio tuned to the wrong frequency would hear a specific voice in the stratosphere.

Maybe it was the same person who controlled the entity on Thyferra. 

Never mind. His strength with the Force was returning. That meant if he could get out of this cell, maybe he could escape on his own. He just had to convince Poe to let him out.

 

\---[]---

 

But Poe did not come back to visit. Two days past, and then three. Meals were pushed through the slot in the door, but it never opened.

"Well done," Finn said to himself, as he sat staring at the steel door for hours at the end of the day. "He's not coming back. You lost your only friend in this hell-hole." He'd gone through his routines, and tried to begin his exercises again, but couldn't bring himself to bother. 

_He's not coming back_. The idea terrified him. What if the Force didn't come back fully either? Maybe the drugs had permanently damaged his mind. Maybe this was it. Maybe the resistance would keep him here for the rest of his life. 

On the fourth day, he held onto the breakfast tray and used it to knock on the door. "I want to speak to Poe!" he yelled. "Is anybody out there? Get Poe down here!"

He kept up the racket for what felt like almost an hour, his voice growing hoarse. When he paused for a moment, he heard two people talking on the other side of the door. "Hey!" he called. "Hey, let me talk to you—"

The slot at eye-level opened. "We heard you. Just shut up. We've sent a message to command."

A couple of hours later the door swung open and Poe walked in. He was in an orange flightsuit, hair mussed from a helmet and smelling like he'd just spent a good few hours in an enclosed cockpit.

"Glad your foot is healed up," Finn said, as the door shut behind the pilot. Poe stayed at the end of the room.

They stared at each other. After a moment Poe shook his head. "What do you want?"

Finn folded his arms. "I'll give you what you want. I'm done protecting an Order that won't protect me or my friends. I'll tell you any information I have."

"Sure you will," Poe said dully. He turned and raised his fist to knock on the door. 

"Hey! Poe, I'm serious," it took Finn two steps to cross the room and grab Poe's arm. Poe spun, slipping out of his grip and pressing up against the door. There was a flash of terror on his face, echoed faintly by Finn's weak Force-sense. Finn stepped back. "I'm sorry."

He really thought Poe trusted him, but of course not. He'd been sent down here on the boss's orders no doubt, to keep the First Order knight complacent, to make sure that the man whose bare mind was a weapon had been properly sedated. They were both still acting. They'd been acting from the minute they met each other on the Finalizer. They'd been acting on Jakku. They were acting now. The only honest conversation they had had with each other was in a cellar in Takodana, both of them doing their best to kill each other.

"It's alright. You just startled me," Poe said, relaxing a little. "What information do you have?"

"The location of a spybase keeping tabs on one of your main planets. It could even be the one we’re on right now," Finn said. He had sieved his memory for something that would sound useful but not compromise the First Order. The spybase was a piece of experimental technology, for long-range observation, but it worked badly and was expensive to maintain. Finn knew the First Order had been planning to decommission it within a few months of his capture. It didn't matter if the Resistance figured that out eventually; he just needed to get out of this cell long enough to make a break for it. "I don't know much else. I've only been out of the Academy for a few months."

Poe seemed to be seeking something in Finn’s face, but at last he said. “Alright. I’ll talk to the General.”

 

\---[]---

 

“I’m not tipping off the Resistance for your vanity project, Ren,” Hux growled. “It’s taken months to get this much intel on their base. I won’t send in a squad of our best special forces to hunt a map that could be entirely in your imagination.”

“I speak for the Supreme Leader,” Kylo rasped through his mask. “You will do as he orders.”

Sno sat at the edge of the room, watching the argument from the safety of the shadows. The rest of the officers around the war table looked like they’d dearly like to join her, some of them nervously fiddling with the papers in front of them or flexing their shoulders as if their jackets had suddenly become too tight. Only the ever-serene KL-2266 sat still. If anything, she looked a little bored. Sno was sympathetic. She had pushed Kylo to find her more responsibility, but it had been a very long and dull meeting. That was until the conversation had turned towards the subject of the incomplete map to the lost Jedi temple and Luke Skywalker. 

“Show me these orders,” Hux jabbed his finger into the table. “Show me exactly where Snoke has said I’m to waste our best shot at taking out Organa.”

“We both know what the Supreme Leader wills,” Kylo’s hands were folded on the table in front of him, but Sno could feel the heat rising beneath his skin.

“Oh, save it!” Hux shoved himself to his feet suddenly. The colonel beside him flinched. “You have no intention of following the supreme leader’s foul plan to – to lobotomise Skywalker—” Hux was almost spitting now, his cheeks flushed with blotches. “—and use him to make his grand army of Force Knights. You want to find him first and kill him. And all you are going to do is get _yourself_ killed and bring the last Jedi down on this campaign, you damn, arrogant fool!”

Sno raised her head. This was a serious accusation of disloyalty, and a strange one at that. Why would the supreme leader not want Skywalker dead? She wasn’t the only one who had suddenly started paying attention. KL-2266 was sitting up straighter in her chair, her eyes locked on Kylo’s visor. 

“You know nothing about my intentions,” Kylo said quietly. 

“The hell I don’t,” Hux’s face was screwed up in sneer. “I’m not sending good troops in there to find an archive that may not exist. Get me some intel that it’s really on D'Qar, or I’m petitioning the supreme leader directly to destroy that wretched planet and every Resistance officer on it.”

“You know I can’t prove it,” Kylo’s hands were now flat on the table, as if trying to grip its gleaming surface to keep himself from lurching to his feet. 

“Then stop blocking my plans.”

“We have been through this. Snoke agrees with me.”

Hux roared. “Than get the damn map out of Organa’s hands so I can blast them away!”

His outburst echoed around the room and left behind a solid, clinging silence. Sno swallowed. She pushed herself to her feet.

“I’ll go.”

Hux turned his bared teeth on her. “Oh no, now your bloody girl has delusions of grandeur.”

“I’ll go in undetected,” Sno turned towards her master. 

Hux wasn’t done. “When we sent you down to Jakku you ending up getting rescued from a Resistance attack four systems away.”

Sno refused to give him the dignity of a glance. She countered, still looking at Kylo, “I would have got the droid off Jakku without a fuss if Hux hadn’t launched an airstrike on top of me.” 

“This is a very different mission,” Kylo said quietly. 

“Look at me,” Sno raised her hands. “It’s just as Hux says. I’m a girl. I’m small and unassuming. And the Force will be with me. I can make people forget me the moment they look away,” she turned to Hux at last. “The Resistance is desperate for basic labour after the chaos from the Hosnian system. Your spies must be able to get me a job turning wrenches or scrubbing engine grease off floors. I'll find out if the archive exists and then report back. They never have to know I was there.”

She could almost feel Kylo’s grumble from across the room. For years he had trained her to be a mirror of himself, to breathe intimidation and glory, to control those around her with strength and, where necessary, violence. Taking an undercover mission like this was not dignified. But she was willing to bet he’d let her sacrifice her dignity for the rest of the map.

Hux glanced between them, the normal colour returning to his cheeks. After a long moment he said, “I’m not happy about it, but let's make a plan.”

 

\---[]---

 

They took Finn out with his hands cuffed in front, but no hood. Poe walked beside him through the concrete halls, with two guards in front and two behind. Poe talked as they went, perhaps to break the tension of the stares from everyone they pass, perhaps to distract Finn from doing anything unpredictable.

They emerged into a larger cavern filled with frantic humanoids around screens and drawing boards. Vines trailed from the ceiling, above piles of junk and abandoned cabinets shoved into the corners. Finn could not believe it was a command centre; he had seen criminal drug dens during raids by the First Order that were tidier and more systematic. There were a few glances in his direction, a few conversations that trailed off as he passed, but most of the Resistance officers seemed to have much bigger concerns on their hands.

His eyes were drawn to a pair of deck-hands with smears of engine grease on their jumpsuits, who were quickly pulling a sheet over a waist-tall droid. Finn glimpsed it so briefly that he could not have described any part of it except its cylindrical shape, but his attention was drawn by the guilty speed with which the deck-hands had covered it up. He turned his head away but listened hard as the guards led him past the deck-hands, and heard a snatch of their conversation, beneath the thump of boots. “—piece of junk, taking up space," to which the other hushed him. "The Boss is sentimental about it. It was her brother's—"

There was no time to think further on this. Finn was led into the heart of the command centre. The room was ancient stone, cracked by roots and propped up by new steel scaffolding. A grey-haired, old captain seemed to be waiting for them, pushing back his leather jacket to reveal a heavy blaster and jerking his chin at Finn. In the centre of the stone room, the chaos orbited around a fixed point; a small woman rugged up in comfortable set of mis-matched civilian clothes. She watched Poe and Finn approach, her lips pursed and her arms folded. Poe sped up to reach her first. "Ma'am, I want you to meet Finn."

The General paused for a moment as the guards stepped away to clear the space between them. The grey-haired man in the leather jacket stayed at the edge of the circle, his hands still propped on his hips where he could reach his weapon in a hurry. Then the General stepped forward and held out both hands. "Hello, Finn. I'm glad to hear you're warming to us."

Finn took her hands with both of his own, still cuffed in front. He could see the guards tense in his periphery vision, and Poe leaning forward on the balls of his feet. He was sure the conversations going on around them hushed just a little too, eyes turning towards them with the intake of dozens of breaths. Evidently at least some of them knew of Finn's threat against General Organa's life, made only a couple of weeks ago. But the general herself showed no alarm. Her grip was tight. Her fingers looked wizened and thin in his youthful hands, and for a second he felt the weight of years of ingrained training and tactical conditioning pushing down on his shoulder. He had been right, when he told Poe that the small probability of successfully killing General Organa was worth any cost. That calculation hadn't changed, never mind that he wasn't at full Force strength, had no weapon and was surrounded by armed guards. But something had changed since then. When he was first captured by the Resistance, he had been unwaveringly sure that they did not deserve any honour or respect. They were criminals and extremists whose misguided ideals were culpable for thousands of deaths – billions, if you counted the Hosnian system. But now, looking at the small woman with the mismatched army, having seen Poe's loyalty to her, it felt wrong to use this opportunity against her. She had been good enough to bring him up here. She trusted him.

He let General Organa's hands fall out of his grip. "Happy to help, Ma'am," the honorific slipped out before he thought about it. 

"Good. Because we need to know everything we can about this," she half-turned away and pressed something on the console behind her. A huge hologram filled the centre of the room, a slowly turning orb outlined in red streaks. Much of the activity around the room had fallen silent. The red glow of the hologram was reflected in scores of eyes. The officers and clerks drew back into the shadows as if afraid the image itself could bring its doom into the base. The General raised her voice. “Everyone else take a break. Let’s keep this friendly.”

At her words, papers and screens were tucked under arms and all the personnel except the guards, Poe and the old captain drained from the room until the cavernous space was left almost empty. Throughout it all, General Organa stood upright with the hologram behind her as if it was being drawn into her orbit with everything else.

"Well?" she asked.

Finn swallowed. "I can't tell you anything about that."

"No?" the General took a step away from the console. "Starkiller Base, they call it, is that right?"

"That's right. But I've never even set foot there. It wasn't in my purview."

"Wasn't in your purview?" General Organa's eyes narrowed. She waved at the hologram. "Finn, our records suggest that over forty percent of the First Order's entire budget for the last twenty years has been dedicated to this weapon. And you're telling me you don't know a thing about it?"

"I don't know what you expect me to know," Finn said. "I was trained as a diplomat. An administrator. This is frontline weaponry."

She tilted her head. "How do we get through the shields?” she asked. 

“I don’t know.”

“How large is the patrol fleet around the base?”

“I don’t know!” Finn raised his hands and saw one of the guards flinch. 

General Organa folded her arms. “You’re not being very cooperative, Finn.”

“Look, I’ll give you what I have,” he squeezed his eyes closed for a minute, trying to remember the plan. “The spybase I mentioned to Poe—”

General Organa, “We’ve known about that rubbish for months. I need something real, Finn. _Prove_ to me you’re willing to work with us.”

He drew in a long breath. If they put him back in the cell, they might never trust him again to let him out again. He’d already driven Poe away. He’d be stuck there even if he could get the Force back to full capacity. “Ask me something else.”

“How can we destabilize the cannon?”

“I don’t know,” he said through gritted teeth. 

Her eyes narrowed. He felt her gaze like a pressure in the centre of the forehead. By instinct he tried to call the Force to his mind and felt nothing, not even the growing pulse of life that he had recovered over the last few days. The General jerked her chin. “Are you sure?”

He found he could only nod. The old captain in the leather jacket stepped forward. “Our best and brightest think it needs a thermal oscillator. You know anything about that?”

“I don’t even know what that is,” lied Finn. He could imagine exactly why this information would be of value. He could still feel the General watching him.

The General sighed heavily and glanced away. “Then you’re no good to us.”

Poe stepped forward now. “Sorry, buddy. I tried to talk her round.”

“Wait,” Finn twitched away from the guard’s hands. “You’re sending me back to the cell? Just like that?”

“I promise we treat our prisoners well,” the General said over her shoulder, already turning back to the console and reaching for a tablet of scrolling data. "But you're still a prisoner."

“Wait, stop,” the guards had their hands on Finn’s shoulders now, trying to pull him away. “There’s an oscillator. I’ve seen the security outline. It'll be in the most heavily guarded region of the planet, Precinct 47.”

The General and the old Captain turned back towards him. She twitched one hand and the guards stepped back. Finn’s heart began to pound. 

“Where? Here?” she tapped something on the console and the thermal oscillator glowed green on the hologram. 

“Yes,” Finn mumbled. “But it would take the republic fleet to get through their defenses.”

“How is the weapon powered?” the old captain asked. 

Finn shook his head. General Organa snarled. “Finn, either you’re with us or against us. How is it powered? How do we detect when they’re turning it on?”

“I told you, I’ve never even been there—”

She strode forward, right up in his face. “Don’t play me, son. If Poe wasn’t standing right there we’d be having a very different conversation right now.”

“The sun,” Finn blurted out. “It needs to position itself by a suitable yellow dwarf star. It displaces the entire fusion nexus into a magnetic plasma confinement ring inside the core. I don’t know the specifics.”

“And how do we bring down the shields?” General Organa was still pressed in so close he could have looped his elbows over her head and snapped her neck even with his cuffed hands, if he was quick enough and lucky enough. For half a second he considered it, a drop of chilled sweat dripping between his shoulder blades. But like she said, Poe was standing right there—

(Poe who had _shot him in the back_ )

—and for some reason he kept thinking of the alien in the cellar on Takodana, and the surety in her voice when she said, _’You feel the call of the light’_ —

So instead of killing her, he said, “I don’t know.” It was the truth this time, though it wouldn’t have mattered if it wasn’t. Nothing else he had told them mattered if they couldn’t get through the shields. 

The General stepped back. “He’s made his choice. Take him back to his cell.”

There were hands on his arms again. “What?” Finn looked between her and Poe. “I told you what I knew! I did!”

“Buddy,” Poe stepped forward as he tried to wrench his arms out of their grip. That word seemed suddenly suspicious. Didn’t Finn have a name anymore? “Take some more time to think about which side you really want to be on. I told you, we could use someone like you, but only if we can trust you.”

“Fuck, Poe, I told you what I know!” Finn was struggling harder, but somehow his body wasn’t as strong as it was supposed to be. They were pulling him away while the General watched, her face emotionless. And he still couldn’t reach even a scrap of the Force. It was like he was back on the drugs. 

He _was_ back on the drugs, he realised. They must have changed the regime. They’d _known_ which food he was skipping and they’d let it go on until this morning, until it became too dangerous to let him stand in front of their precious General with his mind even half-weaponised. They had never trusted him, and he’d lost his chance to change that. 

He thought of the officers putting stormtrooper cadets in the box just to make an example of them, or just for cruelty’s sake, or because another student was dead and bruises the shape of Finn's fingers were around her neck. He had never been anything but a toy or a tool or an occupational hazard. He had never been a person.

“Poe!” Finn shouted. He kicked out and the guards knocked his legs from under him. He went down hard onto his knees. “Don’t put me back in the cell! Poe!”

Poe was watching him, but he was leaning one ear in towards the General. “I can’t stand all this deception,” she said. “You were right. We should have just given him a daily injection.”

“Poe, please! _Please!_ ”

He didn’t mean to say it. But he couldn’t go back in that box. He couldn’t. 

They hauled him up and he was shoved back towards the exit, towards the cell. The harder he fought, the more whatever they’d dosed him with seemed to take effect, until he felt as feeble as a child.

No one paid his shouting any heed.


	10. Collision

Rey awoke at the beginning of the first day shift, in the tiny cot in the worker's barracks on D'Qar. She sat up in the curtained darkness, listening to her roommates pushing off their blankets and stretching around her. By the time the lights flickered on a few minutes later she was dressed in thick overalls, a rough shirt and heat-resistant jacket. She bent her head to offer a quick prayer to the foot-high icon that rested on the trunk at the head of her cot. It was an imagine of the bigendered deity of universal balance, Qora, from her native system of Vee'at. She clipped on her tool belt and joined the stream of five hundred other workers heading to the dining hall. They had twenty minutes to eat before the shuttles began leaving. They would take the workers to different regions of the continent where the Resistance had made use of ancient caves and underground edifices, turning them into factories, storage, maintenance, research and training centres for all the soldiers, equipment and supplies needed to run a militia of this size. A few workers were even heading up to one of D'Qar's small moons to mine for ore and fuel. 

They were all volunteers, given free food and board in exchange for whatever skills they could bring to the Resistance. When she first arrived, Rey was convinced that these people must have been coerced or blackmailed into service to the Resistance, but she soon learned they were free to leave. There were even daily transports taking soldiers and workers away from D'Qar because they could no longer handle the pressure of the war. Those same transports always returned with even more volunteers, as word spread of events Rey had only heard about from the other side: the destruction of the Hosnian system, the mysterious "Thyferra Massacre", a new round of "Tithing" - selecting infants to become stormtroopers - in the outer rim. Rey listened and nodded along whenever news came through of the First Order’s latest 'atrocities' and everyone began to rage, passing around their own personal stories about why they had joined. She could distance herself from everything she was hearing, tell herself that these people didn’t really understand the way sacrifices had to be made in war. But she also understood now that the First Order was run by people with their own agendas, who could make errors, or who had wormed their way into power because they enjoyed power, or were simply heartless enough to make the difficult decisions. So if anyone turned to her to ask why she was being so quiet, her words of sympathy were not entirely feigned. Mistakes had been made.

She told herself that when she was a Knight, when she had real power in the First Order, she would change things for the better. Make the war less brutal and more efficient. This stint on D'Qar would be an education, but it didn't change her heart. 

The other workers in the dining hall found tables with friends and familiar cliques. They chattered ceaselessly and shouted across the hall at newcomers. Rey perched alone at the end of a long bench and ate in silence. Many of them were from the same planets or even the same cities, places that were allies and trading partners of the Republic. But Rey was from Vee'at in a far arm of the galaxy, a system with a language and culture no one would recognise. She had been orphaned in a First Order airstrike. She was sponsored as a technician by a fuel mogul from the local solar group, one who sold ion fuel to the Resistance and received protection from various criminal elements in return. No one knew, of course, that the mogul was in the pay of the First Order. And even he didn't know who Rey really was, though he had no doubt guessed that her papers and background check were fake.

She caught a glimpse of herself in the steel door of the shuttle as she boarded. It was a different girl from the one in the mirror months ago, in the tiny bathroom she shared with Kylo Ren on the Finalizer. If she’d stood her next to that girl now she didn’t think they’d even be picked as sisters. Her hair was short and dusty brown, though it had grown long enough that the fringe needed a trim. She had not worn the golden lenses since she returned from Takodana. She'd even had the medics remove the tattoos from her arms in case anyone in the Resistance recognised them from reports of Kylo Ren's apprentice. They lasered off the beautiful, black rings that had taken her months to collect and replaced the scarred skin with fresh-cloned tissue until you could not even see the colour difference except under very bright light. She had kept the name she'd taken on Jakku; it was a common enough name for a common technician. Her face had even changed over the course of the mission. The weather on D’Qar was overcast but mild for most of the forty-month year, so the workers often cleaned and refitted the vehicles outside where the air was fresh. As a result, freckles were now scattered across Rey’s face, and the skin on her hands had darkened from the near-translucent off-white of a lifetime on space ships. The energy-rich, hearty food in the canteen had filled out her cheeks, and her limbs had lost their wiry definition because the work was long but it was never strenuous. 

This might have been the life she’d have lived if the First Order had never found her. It would have been an attractive life; the free food and board were more than she’d been paid as a child scavenger on Jakku. She would probably have believed in the Resistance’s cause if she’d been left on that miserable desert planet long enough. She might even have been happy here on D'Qar. A few of the other labourers had tried to befriend her and eventually settled for letting her sit in on their drinks and card games; a smaller number flirted with her openly. She considered flirting back, but there was even less privacy here than on a First Order cruiser and she couldn’t imagine being aroused in the public bunkrooms with other labourers trying to sleep mere feet away.

She settled into her seat as the antigrav shuttle wended its way up a valley formed by a broad, braided river. Silently, she began to list her tasks for today. She had to confirm a few rosters, test the malleability of a few people to the Force, and then she would be ready. D'Qar days were about twice as long as a human sleep cycle, and the different shifts of workers, pilots and soldiers all had their own schedule. Over the last two months of living here Rey had learned that schedule and found there was one shift, once a week on the second half of the D'Qar night, when all the different shifts coincided in their rest period. During those ten hours, the base was essentially asleep across all sectors. A skeleton crew keep watch over the planet’s perimeter, but they weren’t focused on the base itself. Security patrols were higher then, of course, but a few droids and bored guards were less of an obstacle than a busy workplace on the watch for strangers loitering in restricted areas.

Two more shifts, and she could explore the base further than she ever had, glean some real intel and maybe – though she doubted she would be so lucky in one night – find the Jedi archive.

Rey’s shift slept through the second half of the D’Qar day, and awoke to the red light of the sunset streaming through the blackout curtains. Rey waited until the last of her room-mates were heading to the shuttles and then hurried back down the corridor to her room. When she reached her cot she seized the icon of Deity Qora, gripped it tightly in both hands and twisted, tightening her fingers until the knuckles went white. The icon resisted and then suddenly crumbled as if made of sugar. Set inside its hollow centre was a black and silver cylinder.

It was a risk to take the lightsaber into the Resistance base. If she was caught with it – assuming someone recognized it – her cover would be blown in an instant. But she felt naked without it. She wanted to be ready for anything.

She slipped the lightsaber into a long, cloth pouch she had found for this purpose and hung it on her tool belt with all the rest of the loops and sheaths. As a last touch she grabbed a cap off one of her roommates’ beds and pulled it low over her face. Then she hurried to catch the shuttles.

The day passed with excruciating slowness. Rey was taking tire pressure readings from the two-dozen vehicles they’d serviced today when her supervisor jogged over.

“Hey, kid,” the woman was big, busty and motherly unless she caught someone slacking off on safety check, at which point she became ferocious. “Didn’t you hear the shift bell? The shuttles are about to leave.”

“I’m not finished,” Rey said. “We need these vehicles back in commission as soon as possible.”

“We’ll be back tomorrow,” the supervisor insisted. “If you don’t get a good night’s sleep, you could make a mistake, and we don’t want that.”

Rey looked up at her, the pressure gauge hanging from one hand. She raised two fingers with her other hand. She said quietly. “I should work late tonight.”

The frown smoothed off the supervisor’s forehead. “You should work late tonight,” she agreed.

“You need to catch the shuttle. You better leave me your card so I can finish up.”

“I need to catch the shuttle,” the woman straightened up, unhooking her key-card from her belt and handing it to Rey before she turned and left the hanger by the external door. Rey continued testing the tires, scribbling measurements onto the tablet in her hand, until the only sound was the hiss and click of the gauge.

She got up, hung the tablet in its usual spot, and then swiped the card over the inner door that led deeper into the Resistance base.

For a moment she paused on the threshold, looking down the hall. She knew from listening into conversations over the past few days that this side of the base was taken up with the underground barracks where the pilots and ground troops slept and lived, close enough to the ships and transports to react to an unexpected attack within minutes. Beyond that, she would need to find someone with a higher level of clearance to reach the central command and the many layers of the Resistance hive where records and intelligence servers would be kept. She wasn’t sure yet how she was going to get in there. Tonight might just be a chance to take stock of the challenge and make a plan for next time. She could always sleep in the hanger and slip back into the ranks of labourers as they arrived for the first shift tomorrow. If anyone questioned her, she’d act ashamed and say she fell asleep while she was working and missed the shuttles. If she begged not to be reported, she doubted anyone would have the heart to write her up.

For a moment she took a breath and reached out with the Force. That told her that beyond the corridor, there was many small clusters of activity spread through the warren of tunnels. It was likely that most of the pilots were arriving from the day’s patrols and scoffing their dinner or bedding down for the night. She pushed out further, feeling a more focused knot of life in central command. Within it was the faint pulse of another Force user, though muffled like someone murmuring in their sleep. She had felt this before and shielded herself from it whenever it was on the base. It was almost certainly the untrained pulse of General Organa herself.

Rey took a breath and opened her senses as far as she could, searching for another pulse, a familiar one, honed by the Academy. But there was nothing. She had tried many times to find it over the past two months. But even if Finn had been asleep, his mind would still have been visible to her.

So he really wasn’t here. The acceptance had come slowly over her time here. She kept hoping for evidence against it, but truth was growing more and more solid. Perhaps he was being kept at another Resistance stronghold. Or perhaps it really was Finn’s spirit she had felt in her dreams. 

Rey headed deeper into the base. She took a cloth and a bottle of glass spray with her so that she could pretend to be cleaning if she encountered anyone. But most of the pilots and officers who passed were lost in conversation, or focused on their radios. Soon even they disappeared and the noise from the bunkrooms and the mess-hall died down to nothing. When she was sure she was not likely to be interrupted, she slipped through to a corridor above the bunkrooms and knocked on a door tucked away behind a meeting room. She was surprised that it was opened so quickly; she’d expected to have to talk her way in. She quickly pulled her cap low over her face.

“Yeah?” the young soldier on the other side frowned at her.

She held up the disposable sack she’d taken from the meeting room and made her voice as small and witless as she could. “My supervisor said to empty all the bins on this level.”

“Oh. Sure,” the soldier stepped back to let her in. She went past the huge wall of flickering screens and crouched under the desk to find the waste-bin. The room smelled of old food wrappers and young men sitting still for too long.

Rey glanced up at the soldier pushed at his mind with the Force. “Forget about me, I’m just the cleaner.”

He looked away from her at once and went back to his chair, dropping into a sprawl and staring back up at the screens. Rey straightened up and stood behind him while she scanned through the images. They showed camera views of every part of the compound she already knew – views of the hangers, the ships waiting on the tarmac, and the communal areas – and pans over the perimeter fences, but there was nothing that looked like the inside of the command centre. Evidently this security post was only one of many. She cursed silently. She’d been hoping to pinpoint the next area she needed to crack.

She watched the screens for several minutes, searching for anything useful. A small patch of movement caught her eye. Someone was strolling through the external corridor towards the mess hall. From the angle on that camera, Rey could only make out the top of a dark, curly head. She watched the man cross into view on another camera. He was heading through the hall towards the door to the kitchens, no doubt looking for a late dinner.

She recognized him as he passed close under the lens. It was Commander Poe Dameron.

In an instant several thoughts converged in Rey’s mind. The first was that if anyone would know where a copy of the Jedi archive was outside of General Organa herself, it was Dameron. He had been sent to find the missing piece from Lor San Tekka. He was evidently deeply involved in the search for Luke Skywalker. The second was that if Finn was dead, it was Dameron that had killed him. That much she had gleaned from Finn’s last, desperate message to her on Takodana. And the third was that if she could find out the location of the archive tonight, she could leave before the base even woke up for the morning shifts. And if she left tonight, it did not matter who she killed on her way out.

She had played at being a friendless scavenger from the outer rim, but now the costume slipped off her shoulders.

The kitchen behind the pilot’s mess-hall was empty and dark except for a bank of lights above the communal fridges. Dameron was sitting at a bench at the edge of the pool of light, chewing on a plate of something that had come out of the fridge and staring at the notices glued to the walls. There were bags under his eyes and a slump in his shoulders. Rey eased the door closed behind her as she came in through the shadows, but she didn't think he would have heard her even if she'd slammed it. She slid the lock shut.

She skirted the edge of the huge kitchen, stepping silently around the illuminated floor tiles, locking each door from the inside as she passed just in case anyone else came looking for food this late. Her eyes was locked on Dameron, and as she stepped into the light behind him she saw his shoulders stiffen. He raised his head, swallowing the last of his meal, and then turned sharply.

Their gaze met and for a moment he just stared at her. Within a split second his eyes widened and his mouth dropped open. It took him only half a second longer to react; he flipped around on his stool so that his back was to the bench and his hand went for the short fruit-knife on his plate. But Rey had already predicted this move as one of a number of possibilities and she was leaping to grab his wrist and neck, pushing the point knife away and bringing his head down on her knee as it jerked up to meet him.

He gave a yelp of surprise as knee and nose connected. He was heavier than she'd expected and her angle was off; she didn't feel anything break on his face. But it was enough to stun him as she hooked her ankle around his leg and flipped him off the stool. He landed on his back on the tiles. Rey had twisted his wrist as he fell and his fingers opened compulsively to ease the pressure. The knife fell to the floor with him.

Next moment, Rey was straddling his chest, his arms pinned by her feet, with one hand over his mouth and the fruit knife an inch from his right eye. Blood gushed from his nose and ran along the inside of her thumb, dripping down his cheek onto the floor. He gave a grunt as he tested her, finding himself held down by a force much stronger than her slight weight, and then tried to scream through her hand.

"Shut up or you lose the eye," she hissed, and he shut up. The blood was rushing to his cheeks and bubbles of blood welled up from his nostrils. "I'm going to take my hand away so you can breathe without choking on your own blood. If you yell, you're dead."

His brows tightened in rage, but after a moment he gave a small nod. Rey moved her hand down beneath his chin, and he gasped for breath through his mouth until the colour in his cheeks faded to their normal brown. She lifted the knife away from his eye and pressed it gently into the side of his neck instead.

"How the fuck did you get in here," he rasped. He didn't even sound like he expected her to answer. He'd breathed some of the blood in and now he spat it at her, a fine spray of pink saliva. She didn't flinch or move to wipe it away. 

"You were sent to find the map to Luke Skywalker," she said, tilting her head.

"And I failed," he snarled.

"We know you have the rest of it."

"What?"

"The Jedi Archives. They contain the last clues to the galactic route to Skywalker."

Dameron's gaze flicked quickly around the kitchen, searching for weapons or help or anything else she knew he would never be able to reach before she slit his throat. When he apparently came to the same conclusion, he croaked. "I don't know about any archives. I thought the map was all we needed."

"I don't believe you."

“Then don't bother asking!” he jerked again, and she pushed him down even harder with the Force until he was labouring to breathe. She let up when he calmed down again. The features of his face relaxed and his voice dropped. “Rey, listen to me, sweetheart. If they catch you here, they’re going to kill you. You can’t fight the whole Resistance on your own. Just get out while you can.”

“Shut up!” she took her hand off his throat and slapped it onto his forehead, digging her fingers into his hair and grinding the back of his head into the tiles. “You lying bastard. We protected you. Finn kept you alive. I wanted to kill you but we decided were going to let you go on Takodana and you _murdered him_.”

Dameron's mouth went very flat and thin and his eyes jerked away from hers. Rey wanted a reaction, she wanted denial, she wanted a reason to hurt Dameron. He’d taken someone out of the universe who was interesting and clever and so different from anyone she’d ever met. And when she thought about it she could feel the dark side of the Force rising like a tempest. 

A part of her (a dream of white, caustic blood flowing from in her mouth) said, _you can MAKE him tell you_.

She bared her teeth and dug her thumb into the centre of Dameron’s forehead. The old interrogation lessons leapt to the forefront of her mind like eager hounds to the smell of blood. She felt blue veins crawl around her face and along the back of her hands. Dameron’s eyes went wide and he tried to inhale as if his throat had closed up. The void opened up and the world fell into it until they were only two left. 

“No—”

She couldn’t quite tell if he’d spoken aloud or if she’d heard it in his mind. Kylo Ren had been here before and he knew what she was doing as she pressed into the skin of his thoughts—

“Finn is alive.”

She looked at him, into his face instead of into his mind. The world contracted back into the shadowy kitchen and the smell of blood, even as she tried to hold the pressure. She drew her hand back and the thread she had wormed into him snapped. Dameron jerked and coughed until it sounded like he was going to bring his lungs up.

“I haven’t sensed him,” she said, feeling suddenly stupid for falling for his distraction.

“Force suppressant drugs,” Dameron rasped weakly, his head turned to the side. 

Her blood pounded in her ears. “Where is he?” 

“I’ll take you to him. I’ll take you straight there.”

She got off him slowly, taking the knife away from his neck last. Dameron rolled onto his side, rubbing one of his wrists. “You Sith don’t fuck around, huh?”

“Get up,” she pulled the cleaning rag out of her belt as he dragged himself to his feet, holding the kitchen bench for support. His empty plate still sat where he’d finished his dinner. The only sign of the fight would be a few drops of blood on the floor. She held the rag up towards his face. “Make yourself presentable.”

“I’m still bleeding,” he said, his voice slightly nasal now that there was clotting in the back of his throat. 

Rey sighed and stepped in closer. She reached up and as he tried to cringe away she gave a sharp pinch to the bridge of his bruised nose.

“Ow!” he jerked out of her reach, pressing the rag to his nostrils. Then he frowned and pressed his nose with two fingers. “What did you just do?”

“It wasn’t even broken. It was an easy fix,” she sighed as he scrubbed at his face.

He held the rag out to her. She stared at it and then back at him. He waved his hand to indicate her face. “You’ve got…”

“Oh,” she snatched the rag back and swiped it quickly over her cheeks. She pointed towards the back door with the knife. “Start walking.”

He turned and sloped towards the back of the kitchen. “You can heal with the Force? And you choose to be…” he glanced back at her, “ _this_?”

“Move,” she pushed him in the small of her back with the heel of her hand. “If you try and run, I’ll kill you. If you try and warn anyone else, I’ll kill _them_. Without hesitation.”

She was pretty sure she wasn’t bluffing. He fell silent after that, walking with his arms stiff and a slouch in his shoulders but a quick pace. Thankfully the only people they passed were a pair of medics bent over a chart. One raised a hand to Dameron, and Rey saw a wrinkle in their brow begin to form, until Dameron raised his hand in return and flashed them a weak smile. 

He led her down a flight of stairs to a heavy door painted in dark grey and produced a key-card from his pocket. This door required a pincode as well. She noticed that his hands were shaking so bad it took him two tries before the locks hissed and disengaged. The corridor beyond was not the carpeted, warm-painted walls of the barracks above, but a stretch of concrete lit by harsh balls of white light in the ceiling.

“This leads under central command,” Rey said as they walked.

“You know this place pretty well,” Dameron answered, his jaw barely moving. She knew what he meant by that. If it was up to him, she would not be leaving here except in a body bag. After a moment he asked, “Why’d you kill my droid, huh?”

“What are you talking about?” she snapped. She was concerned they were going to be heard in the echoing corridor, but he knew what the consequences of that would be, so he evidently did not think they would meet anyone else.

“BB-8,” Dameron muttered. “He trusted you.”

Their footsteps clapped on the floor as they walked. At last Rey said. “I took the map and told it to run. It just sat there like an idiot. Stormtroopers blasted it, not me.”

“He _trusted_ you,” Dameron repeated through gritted teeth.

“You should have warned it, then,” Rey snapped. “You knew what I was, but apparently you thought the droid couldn’t play-act as well as you could.”

He didn’t say anything else. 

Down another set of stairs, and through a dusty, disused room stacked with plasti-sheet files in rusting shelves. Rey was surprised, since as far as she knew the Resistance had only been on D’Qar a few years. Perhaps these rotting records were from another insurgent militia that had holed up in these ancient temples. 

The next room was bare and seeped wtih damp through invisible cracks in the concrete. Lichens had grown in the corners and a single tree root had managed to make it through from the surface far above. Fresh cables had been strung along the ceiling to light a single bulb and connect up the new, magnetic-locked door on the far wall. It was huge, heavy steel with a slot at eye-line. Another card-reader and keypad waited beside the handle. 

“Open it,” Rey gestured at the door. Dameron took a shuddering breath and stepped up to the keypad. He glanced at her once, no doubt trying to gauge his chance of surviving the next few minutes. Then he unlocked the door, gripped the handle and dragged it open.

It was even heavier than it looked. It swung slowly inward as Dameron pushed his weight against it, and the illumination inside was dim after the bright corridor. Rey could see only vague contours as the rectangle of light from the atrium fell into the room, silhouetting her as a heavy shadow on the bare floor. There was a shape at the end of the room. As her eyes adjusted she realised it was a man curled up on a low bench. She took a step closer.

The figure rolled over and wearily slid bare feet onto the floor. His head came up slowly as if he didn’t expect to see anything new, his hands resting on the edge of the bench. And then dark eyes met hers and her breath stuck in her throat as she stepped into the doorway.

He stood up slowly, his eyes squinting against the glare, head tilting to one side. His arms hung by his hips. 

“Rey?”

“Finn,” she felt a smile break across her face. She took a step towards him, reaching her arms out to him. “You’re alive. You’re okay.”

And then Finn’s eyes widened and one hand snapped up to reach over her shoulder. “ _Poe, stop!_ ”

If she’d been paying attention, should would have felt the warning from the Force. Instead, she felt the boot in the small of her back and she stumbled forward and heard the scrape of the door swinging closed much faster than it had opened. She caught herself and turned, lunging to dig fingers and Force into any crack that remained, but the bolts had shot home.


	11. Velocity

Rey roared as she slammed her hands against the door. Outside, alarms began to blare. 

“Shit!” Finn was right beside her, his hands up beside hers as if together their will could pull the door inwards. “No!”

“Stand back,” Rey grabbed for the pouch at her belt and the lightsaber leaped into her palm. She extended one blade, raised it above her head and sunk it into the steel just above where she’d heard the top bolt strike. 

“Rey, what are you doing here?” Finn gasped, his hands flexing as he glanced between her and the door. In the dim light she couldn’t tell his condition, whether he was injured or starved or tortured. He sounded alive and lucid, which seemed like a good start.

“I was sent to get the map,” she gasped, straining to carve through the bolts of the door. “To find Skywalker.”

“That map? I got myself captured and you didn’t even get the map? I thought we had it!”

She glanced at him. “It was only the final piece. I’m supposed to find out whether the Resistance has a working copy of the Jedi archives to complete the route,” she glanced up at the ceiling as there came a shout and the sound of at least one pair of bootfalls. “Without getting caught.”

She grunted as she finished hacking out a semicircle of molten metal and went to work on the second bolt. The heat of the dripping steel seeped across her face. Sweat stuck her fringe to her forehead. 

“Force, what the hell happened?” Finn asked. She looked over her shoulder at him.

“I came to get you first.”

He stared at her, shaking his head slightly. “Why?” 

Rey stared at him, searching for some recognition of something that was so obvious to her. But he was genuinely confused. She felt the second bolt bend and collapse within the door, and the lightsaber sliced through the rest of the metal like a knife through meat. Rey retracted the saber, took a step back and raised her open palm. She breathed in, pulling the door, and with a wet hiss it detached from the two glowing crescents she had cut around the bolt and swung inwards.

Finn watched her step past the mangled door. "You're the one I reached with the Force three months ago. It was you all along," he shook his head. "This can't be real."

“Yes,” she held out her hand. “I heard you. I thought you were dead until then," she remembered the nickname they had given each other on Jakku. "Traitor."

He gripped her hand tight. "You're gonna be one hell of a First Order knight, Traitor."

They ran through the empty atrium outside the cell, the old storage room, into the stairwell beyond. Rey tried to turn off at the door she had come through, but Finn dragged her in the other direction, further up the flight of stairs.

"That's the wrong way!" she shouted at him over the screech of the siren. "That goes straight to central command!"

"I know. That's where the Jedi archives will be."

"You've seen them?"

He shook his head. "No. But I have an idea. There’s a decommissioned droid in there that belonged to Luke Skywalker."

He was standing three steps above her, their clutched hands outstretched between them. Rey shook her head. "Finn, we have to get you out of here before they muster a response team. There's no time."

"We have to finish your mission."

"Fuck the mission!" she bellowed. "I'm not leaving you behind again!"

Finn heaved for breath, wiped a drip of sweat from his neck and then jumped down the steps to stand in front of her. He took hold of her shoulders and stared into her face. "Rey, you cannot go back to the First Order with nothing to show for it. They don't care about me. They care about our utility. We _have_ to go back with the archives or not at all."

She held his gaze, trying to read behind his eyes. But it seemed the drugs that Poe had mentioned blocked Finn's mind even at this range. There was no time to argue. She nodded and pushed him up the stairs. "Go. Go!"

Two flights up, Rey sheared the lock off the next door and they burst through into a low-roofed series of caverns, separated by a few pillars and low walls, and filled with equipment and darkened screens. Orange lights in the ceiling flashed on and off and the alarms were quieter here than they had been below. A handful of night crew were standing around a console in the centre of the largest cavern. Some stood with their fingers in their ears, grumbling to each other while one of them tried to raise security on a radio. They thought this was simply a false alarm.

There was a yelp from the crewman on the radio as they all spotted Rey sprinting towards them, extending both blades of her lightsaber. A bothan woman lunged for a blaster hanging from a holster on the back of a nearby chair. Rey thrust her hand out and the blaster flew through the air and into her grasp.

"Nobody move!" she bellowed, pointing the blaster at them. "Show me your hands!"

Maybe it was the weapons or the weight of command in her voice, but either way it was enough to counteract her costume, the freckled face of the girl from Vee'at in unwashed technician's clothes. The night crew – she counted six, including a man who had tried to bolt for the door – all froze where they stood and raised their hands. 

Rey gave Finn the briefest glance. He was pulling a dust-cloth off a droid that stood behind a low wall. Rey had imagined something small that could be easily disassembled, like BB-8, but the blue and white machine was an old-fashioned, solid hunk of a droid, designed for survival in the vacuum of space. 

"Finn, we can't drag that thing out of here!" Rey hissed.

"I know, I know," Finn was prying at the droid's carapace with his fingertips. "Maybe we can just take the memory unit."

Rey looked back at the hostages to see the bothan woman who'd tried to go for the blaster easing her hand towards the radio that her crew-mate had dropped on the console. "Hey! I said don't move!" Rey barked, firing at the radio. It shattered into a thousand smoking pieces. The three standing closest to it flinched away and someone gave a muffled cry. Rey took a couple of steps closer. "All of you, move together and get on your knees over here. Hurry up," while she corralled the hostages into an empty space in the middle of command centre she called over her shoulder. "Finn, you need an A-driver to get that thing's cranium open. Hexagonal nose. Find a toolbox."

She had taken apart enough of those old droids when she had been a kid. She could have disassembled it blindfolded, but with Finn crippled by the Force suppressants she couldn't afford to swap places with him. The alarms continued to wail, but there was still no sign of a defense team. The Resistance weren't going to rally the first half-dozen soldiers they could find and send them in blasting wildly. They would be trying to figure out how many enemy agents had infiltrated the base, where they were and what they were going to do next. That gave her time. They might just make it out of here. While she listened to Finn rummaging around in what sounded like a bucket of tools, she stepped closer to the hostages and scanned their faces.

"There's a fleet of emergency evacuation ships longitudinal to this compound," she said. She'd helped service three lightly armed transport ships last month and seen them ferried off along a road without anyone acknowledging a destination on their job paperwork. "I know there's an escape route from here to that hanger. Where is it?"

She bared her teeth as she lowered the blaster and pointed the lightsaber at them instead. It looked at least as threatening, but she wasn't going to twitch and shoot someone by accident. She needed them scared but not panicking. All of the crew stayed silent, arms raised and eyes locked on her face. There was one young woman at the back who was shuddering, her lower lip hanging open. Rey focused on her, staring into her eyes. "Where is it?"

The young woman blinked, and just for a moment her gaze flicked to her right. Rey looked in that direction and saw an unmarked door set down a half-flight of stairs. "Finn!" she yelled. "Let's go!"

She looked over her shoulder to see him ripping several cores out of the droid and bundling them up in the sweater he'd been wearing. He nodded at her and, still barefoot, hurried across the room. Suddenly he skidded to a stop, his mouth opening to yell. In the same moment, Rey felt a warning.

She turned back to see the bothan woman rising from the floor and lunging at her, snatching a chair in both hands to sweep it through the air and knock Rey's sword arm aside. Rey moved with all the years of training behind her and spun the lightsaber, slicing through the chair like paper, and in the same movement stabbed the blade right through the bothan's stomach. The young woman at the back of the group screamed. Rey gaped as she dragged the blade out. The smell of burning meat filled the air. Finn hooked his hand around her elbow and dragged her away.

They ran. The exit door was locked, probably by an automated shut-down of the facility. Rey sliced through the small bolt and kicked it open. The blaster was still gripped in her hand so tight it felt like her muscles were in spasm. She managed to push it into Finn's hands, though he fumbled for it with his arms full of the swaddled droid cores. She stammered at him. "Go. I'll cover the rear."

She used the blade of the saber to weld the door shut as best she could behind them and then turned to follow Finn, hooking the retracted lightsaber onto her belt. It was blessedly quiet. The corridor stretched for what looked like hundreds of feet ahead of them. Dim light came from perma-glow strips on the ceiling, and the walls were barely wide enough for two people to run abreast. 

She could still feel the blade going in and then, somehow worse, coming out again. That night on Jakku was flickering behind her eyes, images of the old man kneeling the sand. Rey shook head, trying to clear the sudden fog, pull herself back into the moment. All the blood seemed to have left her limbs, raising the pressure inside her skull until it ached. She felt a swell of rage at the bothan for being so stupid, and then instantly regretted it. The bothan must have assumed she would kill them all to cover their retreat. That was, Rey knew, what the First Order usually did. 

She realised she was lagging well behind Finn no matter how hard she tried to make her legs move. He stopped to wait for her to catch up. Holding the drives under his arm with the blaster hanging at his side, he reached out and took her hand as she heaved for breath. She didn't know why her lungs were struggling. The air seemed to be too thin. 

Finn squeezed her fingers. "Rey, look at me," he said, and she met his eyes. "She was going for the blaster. You were defending yourself. Alright, soldier?"

She nodded, though it made her head spin. "Yes."

"Then let's go. I need my pilot if we're going to steal another ship," and he gave her the first smile she'd seen on him since she'd opened that cell door. It was impossibly strange in the middle of this unplanned disaster of a breakout, and it made her remember exactly how they'd ended up here and why it was worth the risk. They were in enemy territory. This was a war. She had been defending herself.

Everything was going to be better once she brought Finn home. 

The corridor tacked left and then right two or three times, joined in places by other evacuation doors from other parts of the compound. The main route widened at each of these tributaries but continued in the direction that Rey had hoped it would. It was hard to navigate without any indication of what was happening above them, but she was sure they must have gone well past the compound perimeter and into the forest that surrounded the base. Still it kept going, until finally the floor began to slant upwards. There was a set of double doors at the top of the ramp with a single, unlit window. 

It was unlocked from the inside. Finn burst through ahead, the slap of his bare feet suddenly echoing into a huge and otherwise silent chamber. He slowed down as Rey left the tunnel. She pushed the door shut, breaking the handle off on the inside just before the doors snapped closed with a fierce jerk and some help from the Force. She tossed the handle aside and it clattered away into the darkness.

Finn was standing a few feet away, hugging the droid cores to his chest with one arm while he slowly raised the blaster with the other. Rey turned on the spot, barely able to make out anything in the darkness. They were inside a huge hanger, with most of an entire wall ahead of them open to the elements. The hanger seemed to be slightly elevated on a low hill, or perhaps at the edge of a gorge: Rey could see stars outside, illuminating an expanse of forest. Between them and the open entrance, there was the shape of several waiting transport ships. Several were too large to launch from this enclosed space but some looked small enough for two people to operate easily. 

They were only a few feet from escape, as long as they could get ahead of the Resistance's starfighters once they broke atmosphere. But Rey felt like they were in more danger than ever.

There was a click, so soft that only the utter silence allowed it to carry, and then three electronic thumps as three blinding, broad spotlights illuminated the place where Finn and Rey stood. In an instant the lightsaber was back in Rey's hand, both blades extended and humming, and Finn had raised the blaster to shoulder-height. They stood back to back, turning slowly, searching for movement in the darkness, but the light had ruined their night-vision. 

"Put 'em down, kids," a grizzled voice emerged from the hanger, directly between them and the way out. Rey turned towards it, but she couldn't see a thing in the shadows. 

"Finn—" she hissed.

"Already on it," he answered in a low voice. He raised the blaster higher and in three short, sharp shots he took out the spotlights. The hanger was plunged into complete darkness once more. 

There was a curse from ahead. From behind her, Rey heard a gutteral growl. Whatever had made the noise, it had good eyes; the twang of a hyper-blaster burst out of the shadows and struck the weapon in Finn's hand. He gasped and jerked as his blaster spun away into the darkness. Rey grabbed him and pushed him behind her, spinning to put herself and her lightsaber between them and the shooter. The second shot was aiming for her hand, but she deflected it easily, along with the third when it came a moment later. There was a few soft bootfalls, now behind them again.

Finn said softly, "I know that voice. He was the guy cuddling up to General Organa when they took me upstairs."

"Cuddling up?" the voice emerged from the shadows two dozen feet away. "Son, she was the one who begged _me_ to stay."

Rey called back, raising two fingers as she did so. "Just let us pass and I won't hurt you."

There came a low laugh. "Are you trying to get into my head, kiddo? I was basically married to twin Force users for twenty years. There ain't nothing your magic tricks can do to me." A pause, and then he said, "This is ridiculous," and there was another click.

A bank of lights down the center of the hanger flared into life. Most of the hanger was visible at last. Rey looked up at where the hyper-blaster shots had come from a saw a tall wookie with a crossbow perched on the wing of a large transport at the back of the hanger. The wookie was still aiming right at them, but he had good cover to duck down behind. Finn and Rey stood vulnerable in an empty patch of concrete in the middle of the room.

Rey looked over her shoulder at where the voice had come from. The speaker was a grey-haired, weary-faced man in a brown leather jacket. He had a large blaster of his own, pointed right at the unarmed Finn. 

He grinned at her. "You're Ben's apprentice, aren't you? The one Poe calls the baby Sith?" she wasn't going to dignify that with a reply. "You're the one who commandeered the Falcon on Jakku. I have to thank you for finding her." The man inclined his head in a nod. "Name's Solo. Han Solo."

"I don't know you and I don't know any Ben," she snarled, though she could guess who he meant. She turned a little so that she might – just – be able to block him and his hairy partner if they both fired at once. 

Finn whispered. "Rey, he's playing for time. They'll have a response team here any minute now."

She knew that, but what was she supposed to do? She could attack Solo right now, deflect everything he shot at her, and decapitate him before he even had a chance to stop smiling. But that would leave Finn completely unprotected, if the wookie decided to aim for him first. At least if they kept talking, no one was shooting.

"Well, I'm not surprised he doesn't talk about us," Solo's face shifted for a moment, his eyes softening at the edges. "What's he told you, kiddo? About where he came from, I mean. Did he claim he was an orphan floating through space in an escape pod that Snoke rescued out of charity? Whatever he said it’s not at bad as all that,” Solo shrugged. “He made a choice to leave and now he's living with it, and dragging baby Sith like you down with him. But maybe I'll let one of you go. Would that be a fair apology from the Resistance, Finn? Maybe you could take the message for me," he lowered his blaster slightly, and Rey realised he might actually be serious. "Tell Ben he can still come home. No matter how far he thinks he's gone, he can always come home. Tell him his mother wants that, too."

"Alright," Rey said, pointing the lightsaber directly at him now. "I'll tell him. Now step aside."

The blaster was raised again an instant. "Oh, no, I didn't mean _you_. Finn can deliver the message. You've seen way too much to go back to the First Order, and you've proven yourself a killer," he shook his head. "Come on, Finn. Put down whatever you're carrying and step away from the girl. There's a Roidlander at the door of the hanger that the Resistance won't miss."

Rey looked at Finn, and he shook his head. "No way."

"Go," Rey hissed, lowering her lightsaber to show she was cooperating with Solo. "Get to the ship."

"Not Without. You." Finn gritted his teeth.

"I'll be right behind you.”

"They're not going to try and capture you," Finn pressed in close, his eyes locked on hers. "They're just going to kill you. They're more ruthless than you think."

"Good. I can take them all in a fight," she grabbed his arm and shoved him towards Solo. She called out loud, "He's going. Lower your weapon."

Finn took a couple of slow steps towards the entrance to the hanger, but Solo raised the blaster and pointed it at the bundle in Finn's arms. "I said put that down."

"It's just my jacket," Finn said, still walking towards him.

"Put it down, son!"

"I need it. It's cold on those Roidlanders," Finn insisted.

Solo's face was a grim mask now and he nudged his aim over Finn's shoulder. "Put it down or Chewie and I both shoot the girl. Do you think she can block that?"

Finn stopped at last. But he wasn’t looking at Solo. He was looking at a black-cloaked figure in a mask, stepping out of the shadows of the ship that loomed above Solo. The wookie gave a roar of warning. Solo spun and took a step back. The blaster dropped to his side.

“Han Solo,” Kylo Ren said. “It’s been a long time.”

At the entrance to the hanger, Rey could faintly make out the white glint of half a dozen storm troopers. She turned just as the wookie fired on her over and over again, deflecting each shot away with her lightsaber as she backed up. At the same moment there was a huge bang from the inside of the evacuation door through which they’d arrived. The Resistance had finally arrived.

“Rey!” Finn beckoned her with a sweep of his arm. “Come on!”

The evacuation door flew open. Four ground troopers carrying a steel ram lurched into sight and then moved aside to let a dozen more soldiers with rifles surge into the hanger, spreading out on either side of the door and drawing up shields to kneel behind. The corridor behind them was crowded with reinforcements. Rey sprinted after Finn, towards the troopers in the distance who were marching between the transports and raising their own weapons, propping themselves behind landing gear and equipment crates for cover.

When she looked back, the next person through the door was none other than General Organa herself. Even from this distance Rey saw that she was armed not with a blaster, but with a lightsaber. She couldn’t know that it was the one Finn had found in the cellar in Takodana, yet she felt its history seep out across the room as if the temperature had dropped several degrees. Rey stopped in the shadow of the transport, a few feet behind Finn, looking from her master to Solo and then to the General. The Force was alive and roaring like a storm around all of them.

She hadn’t known until this moment where Kylo Ren had come from, but now it was so clear she wondered why she’d never guessed.

Finn was shouting at her to run. The voice of the Resistance troopers echoed through the hanger, ordering them all to stop and surrender their weapons. Rey couldn’t hear what Kylo Ren was saying to Solo, but she couldn’t take her eyes off him as he lifted his helmet off and looked the old man in the face. General Organa was watching them as well. She and Rey were like two lighthouses on opposite sides of a harbour each pinning their beams on two ships headed for a collision, but unable to stop it. They both watched Kylo raise the lightsaber hilt in his hand like an offering.

When the blade cut through the old man’s chest, Rey felt the echo of it. It ricocheted through her master and the General. It ached in her breast and she stumbled back a pace.

Everyone had stopped shouting now. The grand, empty space of the hanger went quiet. There was only the hum of the lightsaber. Solo reached up to touch Kylo Ren's face, and then the blade was drawn out with the grind of cauterised bones and meat. He crumpled.

General Organa broke ranks with her troops. She strode across the empty hanger towards Kylo Ren. The lightsaber in her hand hummed to life, a blue blade far cleaner and better-made than the weapons that the academy could produce. The Resistance soldiers on one side of the hanger seemed frozen, some with their mouths hanging open; the faceless stormtroopers behind Rey had likewise failed to fire. Either both sides were concerned about shooting their own leader, or both found themselves unsure of their orders when the battle had taken such an unexpected turn.

The whole moment stretched into what felt like minutes to Rey, the players all moving as in a slow dream. Solo was an unmoving heap on the floor at Kylo’s feet, and her master was raising his blade to deal a final blow. As he brought it down, the blue lightsaber met it and turned it aside with a screech that made Rey’s teeth ache. She could see the woman was unfamiliar with the weapon, her stance amateur, but rage fuelled the strength in her old limbs and twisted her face. Kylo disengaged their two blades with an ungainly sweep, shoving the General backwards.

If Kylo could not to kill General Organa he would destroy himself. Rey knew this. Despite the body at his feet, his test was not over, and would never be over. The light side was part of him. One misstep and it would consume him. Kylo Ren had to kill her. But Rey did not think that he could. Her master was vulnerable in this moment of half-triumph and half-shock as he stood over Solo's dying body. And if in his hesitation Leia Organa killed Kylo Ren, if she _could_ kill him, it would change _her_. That change would alter the Resistance and all that they stood for. It would change the war. Without even knowing the woman, Rey was as sure of this as she was of her master’s fracturing mind. One way or another, this battle would end both their lives.

“Stop!”

She heard her own voice before she realised what she’d done. Even later, should could not be sure whose life she was trying to save. She stepped out of the shadow of the ship, her hand outstretched. “Master. Come with me.”

Before the General could strike again, they fled for safety.

 

\---[]---

 

“How did you find us?” Rey said, standing with Kylo Ren at the back of the stormtrooper ship as they left the atmosphere. She was trying to pull her mind back into Sno’s body, but it felt ill-fitting, too loose in some places and too tight in others. She still felt like Rey.

She was speaking to Kylo's mask. He had somehow reclaimed it as they left, and now he stood with his hands behind his back, looking through the transport’s small window towards the shrinking D’Qar.

“I had a patch placed under your skin grafts when you removed your tattoos,” Kylo Ren intoned. “Relaying location, heart rate, other vitals. When your routine changed, I made sure I was close enough to provide assistance. I hope you are grateful.”

She bit the inside of her cheek until she could keep her voice even enough to speak. “Did you just not trust me?” she asked. “I had it under control. I would have got us out of there. You had no right to inflame the situation," she wished he'd take off the mask for once. Normally it made her back off, but now she just wanted to dash her hands against it. He had only revealed himself when Solo had threatened her. He'd let his emotions overwhelm his reason. Maybe not just his feelings about her. "Or did you need an excuse to see _him_?”

Kylo Ren turned to look at her. “You should address me properly, Sno.”

“He was your father. Master.”

“No,” Kylo Ren looked back at the planet. “His son was long dead.”

She waited for him to offer something more, anything to prove he had been striking from a place of strength instead of being lured in by his weaknesses. But he said nothing.

 

\---[]---

 

Finn found an empty seat on the transport. He cradled the droid AI cores in his arms, still bundled in the sweater that Poe had brought him months ago. He realised his feet hurt. They were grazed and bruised from the escape. He’d have to ask the troop captain if there were any spare uniforms on board. But right now just being in a space larger than the cell was giving him vertigo. It had been alright while the adrenaline was pumping during the escape, but now that his life wasn't in danger he felt lost. He didn't know how he could just go back to the First Order and do his job after all he had learned.

He looked up as Rey came over and sat down beside him. She was carrying a first aid kit, which she set on her lap. Without saying anything she stuck her arm out in front of her and pressed her fingers along it until she encountered something invisible beneath the skin. Then, as simply as if she was shaking a stone out of her boot, she drew one blade of her lightsaber and pressed it to the inside of her wrist. He watched with a frown as she gritted her teeth. After a few seconds she holstered the lightsaber and gently blew on the peeling, blistered skin.

“You’re… you’re not doing that for fun, are you?” Finn swallowed.

Her eyes went wide as she looked at him. “No! Force, no,” she hissed and flicked open the first aid kit with one hand, pulling out a tube of antiseptic and then a roll of gauze. She applied both to the burn and then pulled her sleeve down over the bandage before it even occurred to Finn that he could help. She was grimly efficient, as if she'd treated her own lightsaber wounds many times before. 

“He put a tracking device just under the skin without my knowing. That should fry its circuits. I'll have it removed back on base,” she flicked of her gaze towards Kylo Ren at the other end of the ship to confirm exactly who she meant. Then she turned back towards Finn and looked him up and down. “Are you hurt? Did they hurt you?”

He shook his head and shrugged. “Just my social skills. I haven’t spoken to anyone in… about three months, I think.” 

This was half true; the Resistance doctors spoke to him each day when they came to give him a shot of the drug, but he had refused to utter a word to them. Poe had been with them the first few times, but Finn had not acknowledged his presence either. Eventually Poe stopped coming, and the daily injections had become part of the routine. He realised now that Rey's name might be the first word he'd spoken for months. It had been the sheer shock of seeing her that had broken his silence. When the door opened and she stood there in Resistance-issued overalls, there had been a moment where he thought she was somehow working for them, that she had been a double agent all along. But then she'd made that stupid joke – "Traitor" – layered with all the chaos of those strange three days from Jakku to Takodana, and he couldn't believe that a lie could be that complicated. Only a strange, human truth could be that complicated. 

She whispered, “I wish I'd come sooner.”

“Rey,” he reached out and took her hand. “You didn’t have to come at all. You saved me. Thank you.”

He still couldn’t trust anyone. But maybe he could lean on Rey until he recovered.

Her cheeks pinked and her tongue darted out to touch her lower lip, but she didn’t answer. _Kylo Ren’s apprentice is in love with me,_ Finn thought, wanting to laugh at the absurdity of it. _Force, as if I didn’t have enough asteroids to navigate right now._

But he didn't let go of her hand.


	12. Pulsar

The first few hours back on the Finalizer were as disorientating as re-entering Jakku's orbit in the crippled TIE fighter. Finn was pulled away from Rey as soon as their shuttle docked and shoved into a wheelchair, the droid cores taken from his hands before he even realised they were gone. After that there seemed to be some argument about who would get a hold of him first. Medical Response insisted he was injured and wanted him in the emergency clinic, but Psyc Services said he had to be placed into a recovery program at once to counteract any damage and brainwashing from the Resistance's ill-treatment. Intelligence Division wanted to debrief him for all the information he could provide, while Ship Security did not want him on board at all until it had been fully confirmed that the Resistance had not planted explosives in his chest cavity. The arguments grew more and more heated above Finn's head, and he hunched into the chair and tried to keep his face averted from the bright lights of the ship's corridors. He had not realised how dim the cell had been until now. His eyes ached, and it made his head ache. He felt like a sick child, his muscles slack from months without proper exercise, missing all the senses the Force granted him. It was intolerable, and after a few minutes of being wheeled from one room to another he was sick of it.

"Alright," he growled, and it came out as croak. Nobody heard him. He cleared his throat and made his voice in a bellow, the sort that would carry across a battlefield. "Alright! That's enough!"

The arguments were cut short. Finn looked around at them. "I'm not dying and I'm not a spy," he said. " _And_ I outrank all of you. Tell me what you each want and let's prioritise."

In the end, Medical got him first, checking the now-healed blaster wounds while Security scanned him for bugs and bombs. Once his feet had been bandaged he demanded a shower, although even then he had to let two Intelligence agents stand in the communal washroom, in full uniform, trying to interview him without getting their recording equipment wet. That might have been the worst part for some people, but in a way it reminded him of the Academy. There had always been a lack of privacy even in the shower, with Finn's fellow students haranguing him to hurry up before the hot water was gone, or asking him for help with some extra work they'd been assigned as punishment. Finn wasn't at all bothered by washing in front of others, and he was very good at switching half his brain off while still stringing the agents along with half-hearted responses to their questions. It was good to have their company after so much solitude. The water stripped away months of the confinement, caressing muscles that had been tense and underused for far too long and soaking into his overgrown hair. For these few minutes, he was free.

The agents were chased off by the two Psyc Services doctors that had already been assigned and flown in from Sacorria. The First Order was nothing if not administratively efficient. They led him to a bed in a private ward and found him fresh clothes.

"I don't want a private ward," he said. "I can just sleep at the ship's trooper barracks. I've been alone in a cell for months, I don't want to sleep on my own another night."

The doctors exchanged glances. One admitted at last, "I wish we could arrange that, FN-2187, but... you're not cleared to interact with troopers yet. There's the risk of... non-conformity. Maybe even transgressive transference."

"Of course," he knew these phrases well. The doctors were worried that he might be a bad influence. 

"Try and rest here," the other doctor patted the bed. "You might find crowds a little difficult for now, anyway."

There were blood-tests and eye-checks and pathogen swabs and many, many questions still to go, but at least Finn could sit up in bed and try to organise the chaos in comfort. Slowly the medics and analysts drained away, and when Finn next looked up he realised there was only one person standing over his bed. It was KL-2266. She stood back a few steps, where the bright lamp above him couldn't touch her, her arms by her side, watching him.

"Hey Stix," Finn said. "Long time, no see."

"Too long. So much for your quiet admin job," Stix answered. Her dry voice sounded just like when they had been friends in the academy, and for a moment Finn was overwhelmed with nostalgia. He drew his knees up and pressed his face into his folded arm, breathing out slowly until it passed.

"I'm ready to go back to a desk and a keyboard," he said when he raised his head again with a smile. He paused for a moment. "What about the Knights? How is it going? Are they still following your orders?"

"Our work is classified," Stix’s face went blank.

"Of course," he tried to look her in the eyes, but even when he held her in his gaze she just seemed to be staring through him. He pushed her, "Stix, the Resistance wanted information from me. They showed me a video of you and the others on Thyferra and asked me about it. I didn't know what to say."

There was a flicker in Stix's face, a moment where her gaze seemed to connect to his, and then it was gone. "It was leaked deliberately by the Propaganda Department. A message for other would-be traitors."

"I know," he swallowed. "It was very… impressive. What you were doing… I didn't know we could do that."

"We were pushing the boundaries of the Force," Stix answered.

Finn blinked. "So it _was_ a test. What were you measuring? How strong you were? Or how long you could maintain the entity?"

"Strength. Time is no longer an obstacle.”

"What do you mean?"

Finn stared at her. Stix didn't answer. Finn sat up in the bed and swung his legs over the side so he was facing her. "Stix, what do you mean? How long can you maintain the entity? How long can you stay connected to the other Knights?"

"That is classified," said Stix.

Finn gripped the edge of the bed. "Stix, are you in the entity right now?"

"That is classified."

Finn stood up. Stix was an inch shorter than him, but he knew that with the Force-suppressant drugs still in his system, she could kill him in a dozen different ways without even raising her heart rate.

"What's wrong with you?"

"FN-2187, this matter is above your protocol."

Finn stared at her, a frown growing on his brow. He had known her for most of his life, had slept beside her for years, curled up with her when the nights were cold. He had showered with her a thousand times even as they had grown into their adult bodies. They had joined the Network on the same day, daring each other, and compared intimate stories when the tutors weren’t listening. He had fought with her in the sparring ring and in the mental arena, beaten her and been beaten by her in every way they could test each other. He had survived field missions with her while they were still students who didn’t know up from down. He knew every inch of her, her body and her mind.

But he looked into her and did not recognise her.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"FN-2187, you are verging on disobedience."

"Stix. Tell me you're still in there," he whispered. He had no power with the Force right now, couldn't look into her mind the way he used to, but his own vulnerability made him brave. "Who are you really?"

And Stix's face shifted before his eyes, her features growing sharp and familiar. It was the way he had often seen her struggle with injuries that she refused to acknowledge.

"Eight-seven," she rasped. Her voice dropped and became drawn out by unseen agony. "We... are all... him."

"Stix!" he reached out and gripped her shoulders.

She looked like she was trying to smile, her eyes crinkling up, her skin shivering and her throat going into spasms. At last she said. "TD was the lucky one."

“Stix, don’t go back!”

“I know now why she spared you.”

" _Stay with me!_ "

But her mouth went flat and her face turned back into an expression like the cold carapace of a ship. Something invisible struck out at him. He should not have been susceptible to the Force because of the drugs, but it cut deep into his living centre. Finn let her go and stumbled backwards, catching himself on the edge of the bed.

Stix blinked at him, her eyes half-lidded. “You are wasted in administration. You'll come back to us,” she said, turned and left the medical ward without looking back at him.

 

\---[]---

 

Rey pressed her ear to the door of the boardroom. She had pulled it slightly ajar, holding the handle to keep it from swinging open any further.

"The committee calls Captain Phasma to speak," a pause, followed by heavy bootsteps. "Captain Phasma, unit FN-2187 reported to you when he arrived on the Finalizer approximately five months, is that correct? While you were in orbit around Jakku?"

"That's correct."

"And you were an overseer during his early conditioning? Before he was dispatched to the academy?"

"Also correct."

A scratch of pens. "Can you confirm your official relationship with FN-2187 after he was recovered from the Resistance base?"

"I was in charge of his debriefing."

"And how did you find him during debriefing?"

"Extremely willing to talk," Phasma drawled. "Despite severe limitations on his movements in the Resistance base, he provided substantial information for the analysts in the Intelligence Division, right down to the make and wear of General Organa's boots."

"And is there anything else you wish this committee to know about that debriefing? Any... conduct notes?"

"Nothing else."

"Thank you, Captain. The committee will confer."

There was muttering, the shifting of papers, tapping at keys and the shift of uniforms against uncomfortable chairs. It was a very short time, however, before the chair of committee spoke again. "FN-2187, please rise."

Rey heard the scrape of a chair. She pressed her eye against the tiny crack in the door, but no matter which angle she squinted at she couldn't see Finn.

"This disciplinary committee has found that FN-2187's characterisation of his time in Resistance captivity is consistent with reports from the field medics, the surgical team, and the psychological evaluations after his retrieval from the base, as well as statements from Apprentice Sno Ren," Rey twitched to hear her name, "the first dated after his initial capture and the second covering the eventual rescue. In light of this, the committee finds that FN-2187 has acted honourably in defeat and captivity, and recommends that he is reinstated to his previous rank and position, dependent on clearance from physical rehabilitation. This session is closed. You may go. Clerk, please send the next group in."

"Thank you." It was the first time Rey had heard Finn speak. She darted back out to the main corridor as she heard the commotion of the small number of attendees getting up to go. She lurked around the corner, chewing on her thumbnail, watching Captain Phasma and a couple of medical witnesses head off in different directions. Finn was the last leave, the door through to the boardroom sweeping shut behind him. Rey leaned over and pinched the corner of his sleeve as he passed her. "Hey, Traitor."

He jumped, wide-eyed and then beamed at her. "How long have you been out here?"

"Since when have you been so jumpy?" she smirked. "I thought you were a knight of the First Order," she tapped the side of her head. "Didn't you sense me coming?”

Finn gave a pained laugh and scratched the back of his head. "The suppressants are worn off, but I guess I'm out of practice."

"But they gave you got your job back."

"Yeah, I'm looking forward to being busy again."

She couldn't help giving him a once-over from polished, knee-high boots to neatly-trimmed hair. His shoulders strained against a sharp-cut jacket. Like his fellow knights, he had shunned a cloak in favour of a soft hood, its neat folds curled around the back of his shoulders. She had only seen him in borrowed stormtrooper gear and the unwashed civilian clothes from the Resistance. In his black Knight's uniform, he looked restored to a full glory she had only glimpsed before now. "Finn, I think this is the first time I've seen you in uniform," she raised one brow.

He glanced left and right. "Look... you should probably call me Eight-Seven from here on, yeah? Finn... that was part of my cover."

Rey blinked at him. "Oh. Yes, of course," she licked her lower lip. "You probably figured out by now to call me Sno." She was trying to tell herself the same thing, but ever since she'd come from D'Qar, she found herself slow to answer to 'Sno'. She had been Rey for two whole months. She knew it would take a while to adjust, but she silently cringed when she heard 'Sno'. It felt like a name for the child she'd been, the apprentice she still was, and she wanted so badly to be more than that.

Finn stuck his hands in his pockets, and jerked his chin at her. "I like your hair."

She ran her hand over the short cut. "Me too. Easy to look after."

"Tell me about it," he said, and then shook his head. "I don't know why I said that, I've never grown my hair out. Look at me," he laughed and rocked back on his heels. "I'm a nervous wreck. I don't know what I thought the committee was going to do with me."

"You shouldn't have worried. You did your duty," Rey frowned.

He swallowed. "Yes," it looked like he was trying to smile and not quite managing. "Speaking of which, how did your master feel about everything that happened? I read most of the reports before the hearing. It sounds as if you blew your cover to break me out. The whole mission was compromised to save me."

"I don't think anyone's very happy with me," Rey closed her arms over her chest. 

"We got pretty lucky, didn't we?"

"Let's not talk about it."

He watched her for a few seconds, his features relaxing. Finally he reached out and touched her shoulder. "Thank you," he said. 

"You're welcome, Eight-Seven."

He leaned forward, and Rey found herself bending towards him, pressing into the warmth of his hand. There was a moment where they both moved, and then stopped, like two ships trying to dock in orbit, in fits and starts.

"Sorry, I should be more careful," he dropped his hand suddenly. Perhaps he’d just remembered that unnecessary physical contact was forbidden. Or maybe she hadn't imagined that moment in the basement of the Resistance base, that moment when she'd said, _"I came to get you first,"_ and he had looked at her like she was speaking another language. Maybe he really didn't see her the way she saw him.

"It's alright," she glanced around to make sure they were alone in the corridor. "No one saw your transgression." Finn grinned. Then he bent and kissed her quickly on the cheek. She felt her blood rush to her face and smiled back at him. 

"Are you heading back towards the hub?" he asked, motioning towards the central corridor. She nodded and they began to walk. "I'm going that way too. The next shuttle to Sacorria is tomorrow and I have to get cleared by Physical."

"You're going back to Sacorria? So soon?"

"Of course. The Academy's recruitment office has been hounding me to come back to them since they found out I was alive," he glanced at her. "I'll message you if I have any work on Starkiller or within the fleet. I mean, not personal correspondence of course, but I'm sure I can find some Force-related business to consult you on," he shot her a smirk. "And you'll absolutely _have_ to ask me for help before your trials."

“I will. I’ll call you,” she nodded, her stomach clenching. She'd just got him back, and now he was literally going to be worlds away.

He stopped and turned to look at her again. After a long moment he said, "Don't do anything like this again."

"Like what?" 

"Rescuing me. Don't get me wrong; I couldn't have escaped without you. I owe you my life. But no single soldier is worth compromising a mission for, even a knight. You know that."

Rey held his eye. "What are you afraid of?"

He leaned in. "Re— Sno..." he shook his head. "Rey. Just because you're Kylo Ren's apprentice doesn't mean you're free. None of us our free. We're part of a machine."

She couldn't answer for a moment, half angry at being lectured and half thrilled by the insurrection beneath his words. At last she said. "Then take care of yourself, and I won't have to break the machine to save you."

He huffed, and she couldn't quite tell if it was a laugh or a scoff, but there was that smile again and that was all that mattered to her.

 

\---[]---

 

“Please make sure to sit still. When the buzzer sounds,” intoned Finn, “a light will shine from one of three tubes at randomized intervals. The light will be uncomfortable in your eyes but will not do you any damage. You can use the slider in front of you to cover the tubes, but it will only cover one tube at a time. If you cover the tube before the light turns on, you will be more comfortable. Do you understand the instructions?”

“Yes,” said the girl in the chair a few feet away.

“Good,” Finn pressed the button on his console. There was the buzz of the machine and the long silence as the test proceeded. It was a familiar sound by now. Every half hour of every day for the last week, Finn had gone through the same routine. Already he was pretty sure he could have done it in his sleep. The answer was always the same.

He looked away so that he couldn’t see the results, resting his chin on his hands. There was always the chance that he might use the Force to help the cadets – not on purpose, of course, but in desperation for something to break the monotony. He'd been trained to use the Force to test cadets' strength, their innate ability to communicate, their resistance to mental manipulation, and a host of other things. He'd hadn't had the chance to use a single one of those skills. None of the children he'd seen so far had passed the preliminary screening.

Finn had been in the job for just over a week. The Academy recruitment office occupied the top floors of a cloud-hanging building in Saccoria's main city. There were over fifty employees, mostly researchers and technicians to process the blood samples taken from every cadet in the First Order. There were also analysts who monitored stories of strange talents or behaviour in children, both in the First Order and within its territories. Where there was credible evidence of a Force-sensitive child, extractors could be sent to apprehend them, and with Finn's help confirm whether or not they had potential. Or eliminate them if they were a danger to themselves and others.

 _'With Finn's help'_ was the most important part. For years now, the recruitment office had been without an actual Force-user to identify and rate sensitive children. That meant the Academy hadn't had new students for years. Finn had volunteered for the training years ago, when the old recruiter – a woman named Mir – had gotten sick. It had been his chance to officially hand leadership of his class over to KL-2266 and follow his own path. They’d taught him not just how to test children whose Force abilities had not yet manifested, but also the diplomacy and espionage necessary to recruit children from all over the Galaxy. The Academy was relying on him to bring them new blood. And here he was, sitting in a white room, watching kids fail the same tests over and over.

The buzzer sounded again. Finn looked down at the console.

She had scored twenty-eight out of thirty. He raised his head sharply. The girl was rubbing her eyes. “I missed the last two,” she said sheepishly. “Sorry.”

“No, that’s… that’s very good, BR-5311,” Finn scrolled through all of his notes from the session so far. It was not just good. It was impossible for a normal human. And this was the fourth test that she had passed with those impossibly good scores.

Finn looked at the girl again. “BR-5… what do your squad call you?”

“Brig,” the girl said. Her hands rested on her knees, one finger tapping out a quick rhythm. She was tall for her age, with a broad chest, chunky legs, and thick, straight, black hair cut short in the front but left long around her ears. There was the faint shadow of nearly-healed bruises on her left knuckles. Somebody had been cocky when they blocked her right.

“Brig, I want to try something else,” Finn got up and swung the testing equipment away from the table so that there was a long, bare space between the girl and his console. He took the pen from his tablet and put it on the table at the other end from her. “Pick up the pen. Without getting out of your chair.”

Brig swallowed, and then reached out her hand. The pen trembled, tapping the surface like a dancer, and then rolled the length of the table until it was within her reach. She picked it up and held it out to him.

Finn stared at the pen for a few seconds before he took it back and slipped it into his robe. He sat down on the far side of the table, pushing his console back into the drawer and folding his hands in front.

“Brig, your scores are _very_ good,” he said. He didn’t miss the way her spine straightened and her face went very still as she tried to contain her pride. “Your blood tests were enough to bring you here for screening, but they’re not _this_ good. You’ve been training yourself to use the Force.”

The girl’s hands clenched on her knees. Her jaw went very stiff.

“I’m not going to report you,” he said quickly. “Apart from your test scores, what you say and do in this room is confidential. Do you know what that means? It means it’s just between you and me. All I do is make my recommendation to the Academy, yes or no. That means you can tell me about what you’ve discovered you can do, and whether or not you _want_ to go to the Academy. If you don’t want to go, I will take that into account when I make my decision.”

“I do!” Brig’s eyes widened and she twitched as if she was about to leap out of her chair. “Master Eight-Seven, I want to go. Esteemed Mir tested me four years ago, and she said she’d recommend me if I scored just as well the next year. But then the office never called me back. I thought if I practiced, I’d have a better chance of getting in late.”

She trailed off, and Finn waited until he was sure she’d finished. She balled her hands between her thighs and he wondered if she was remembering whoever she'd punched to leave those bruises on his knuckles.

“Why do you want to go?” he asked quietly.

Brig ducked her head.

“Confidential, remember? There’s no cameras in here.”

“I want to protect those around me,” Brig muttered. “Most of us are going to die. They don’t talk about it, but we see things the officers don’t want us to see.”

“You want to be stronger. You want better weapons,” Finn suggested.

“I want to use everything I have,” Brig hunched into herself.

Finn sighed and pulled his tablet closer, pulling up her file. “Brig, you’ve got top-notch grades in leadership and tactical thinking. This is how you’ll protect your squad. You don't need the Force.”

“You’re not going to recommend me,” the girl mumbled.

“You haven't failed,” he leaned towards her. “I’ve seen over a hundred cadets this week, some of them with more promising bloods than you. Do you want to know how many I’ve recommended?” he paused, but she didn’t acknowledge the question. “None. You’re the only one who passed the tests.”

“Then why can’t I go?” she raised her eyes to meet his.

Finn held her gaze. “You’re twelve. Almost thirteen. You’re too old,” he said. “The Academy regime is extremely difficult even for students who are young, whose Force potential is still malleable. Only one in three made it to graduation in my class. But for those who start training over the age of ten… the chance drops to none. I was the second-oldest in my group to pass the trials. The entire grade above me began in their teens and _every_ single one of them failed. I watched my peers older than me drop out one by one. Four of them died. It would be irresponsible of me to recommend you.”

“Then why was I allowed to come back for screening?” Brig said, with a growl low in her throat. “How good do you have to be to get in at my age? If… if I hadn’t missed those last two lights in the test?”

He wished he could describe to her how each of his friends had died, the stupidly unnecessary accidents and one suicide. How the academy knew how great the danger was, but they let it go on because they thought it made the students adaptable and strong. Finn had believed that too, once. He’d called himself a success. Bullshit. He was just a survivor, by luck as much as anything else. He could tell BR-5311 all of that. But scaring her would just make her more likely to rebel.

“We have a backlog. Mir died not long after your last screening, and the Academy insisted we test everyone whose blood results are still positive. But my standards are much higher than theirs,” Finn pulled his console open again and began to save the results to file. “My decision is final, Brig. I’m sorry. You need to stop using the Force or you will be sent for reconditioning.”

She sat in the chair, staring down at the polished surface of the table. Finn swallowed. “You can go now.”

“Please,” Brig raised her head. “Please, Master Eight-Seven. I… I have this power in me and I want to learn. It… it talks to me. I need to know what it is.”

Finn felt his stomach writhe. There was a long stretch of silence. Against his better judgment, he said at last, “I’ll make enquiries with the Academy. If there are other late students in the ranks in your position… it may be worth the First Order investing in a low-intensity curriculum. But they want Knights, not Force-sensitive stormtroopers. Don’t dwell on it.”

Brig jumped up, bowing quickly to him. “Thank you, Sir.”

“You can send the next cadet in.”

“I’ll be more careful in the future, Sir,” she strode to the door.

Finn didn’t look up from his console. “Don’t be careful. Stop doing it.”

“Yes, Sir.”

The door shut behind her. Finn scrubbed his hands down his face, exhaling slowly. Only about four hundred more, and they’d be done with this backlog and could start testing students who might actually have a chance at the Academy. He hoped the rest weren’t as headstrong as BR-5311.

And even once he had real recommendations to make… he was sending kids to the school that had driven his peers to collapse, to kill themselves with mistakes and exhaustion. The Academy that drove him to murder his sister. And even when it produced real successes, like Stix, even when its students survived both the trials and their own memories, it wasn’t enough. It kept taking. Just look at Stix, look at what they had taken from her. 

Finn realised the table under his hand was shuddering. He let out a long breath and drew the Force back in. He was part of the machine. He couldn't change it, but he could do his job right.

BR-5311 would make a good stormtrooper captain one day, but he was glad she wasn't going to the Academy. Finn hoped he didn’t feel this affectionate towards the kids he couldn’t reject. But there was no other path for Force-users in the First Order.

Except… Finn frowned to himself. The next cadet had come in and was waiting patiently by the door. Finn waved at the far end of the table. “You can have a seat.”

There _was_ another path. There was Rey.

 

\---[]---

 

The message was waiting for Rey when she returned to her quarters. Even here on Starkiller, she shared rooms with her master, but he had not been back to them once since she had returned from D’Qar. For the first time in years she had not been assigned to follow him on his missions. At first she was told she had to wait for clearance from Psyc Services to confirm she did not require reconditioning. She had been exposed to many transgressive ideas in the Resistance, after all. But then the referrals to Psyc were withdrawn, and she was sent an unsigned order to continue her training on the planet, alone. It was Kylo Ren’s wording, but he seemed to be trying to give her the impression that he was not speaking for himself.

So she spent the days exercising, studying military histories and sparring with those officers who were willing to go against her – usually while they were armed and she was not. It was still not a fair fight, so the numbers in the gymnasium soon dwindled.

The message was a welcome break from the monotony. She assumed it was Kylo at last, summoning her back to the field, until she saw that it had been routed through a comm-carrier from Sacorria. Rey rushed to her room’s holo-deck and dropped down in front of the low table to view it.

Finn appeared, his face blank and his shoulders slightly hunched. “Hello. Rey? I’m not used to these long-range messages, but… hopefully it’s coming through clearly,” he paused, and she could see his features begin to shift, the corner of his mouth quirking as he got into the swing of the recording. "I thought I'd have to invent some excuse to talk to you, but I have some real news. I've been thinking about the Academy and I feel like... Force, I'm turning into Stix... I feel like it's a waste, how many kids go in and how few come out the other side. There must be a better way to train Force-sensitive cadets. And the problem as far as I can tell is that the Academy is run by the Knights of Ren and they don't know what they're _doing_. They're academics, not practitioners," he gave a small shiver. "I feel like I'm going to get a week in the box for just saying that, but they need me now more than I need them. And it's the truth. Most of what we really learned in the Academy we figured out from each other, by trial and error. But me and you, Rey, and your master, and my classmates – we understand what the Force is and how to harness it. How it moves through us. Rey, you're going to be a Knight soon... would you be ready to take apprentices?" he scrubbed one hand down his cheek. "I just keep thinking how well you've turned out, with Kylo Ren as your teacher. I think we're going to have three or four cadets who are too old for the Academy, or on the borderline, but I think there's still hope for them. If you took one on, and Ren too, and me… if I can find the time around work. Maybe if Stix and the others were available…"

Finn paused, a grim set to his mouth. "If I can get Stix back on my side, that gives us up to eight teachers for apprenticeships. It might take a few years to prove they're as good as the Academy graduates, but if we do, maybe the Academy can become more of a prep curriculum and _all_ the students can move to apprenticeships after a few years. Maybe we can even take on multiple apprentices, two or three at a time, until there's enough knights to pick up the excess," he was talking fast now, his hands dancing in the hologram, his eyes alight. "If apprenticeships have a lower drop-out rate than the Academy, we'd be saving these students a lot of pain, saving their lives in some cases," his voice petered out, looking at an empty place in the air. He shook himself. "I'm going to put a resource proposal together and try to get it on the executive agenda as soon as I can. Tell me if you think I'm wrong. Your support will help a lot if I end up testifying. Well. Mail me back. If you want to. When you have a chance.”

Finn reached out to his console and the message ended. The hologram shrunk to a line of options. One of them was ‘Return Message’. Rey unfolded the recorder and knelt in front of it, her back straight. The light went on, but Rey found her throat had closed up. If she had been sending an operations update to Kylo, the words would have come sharp and easy. What did you say to someone when all you really wanted was to let them hear your voice, in the hope that they’d return the favour? She focused on Finn's questions. Was she ready to take an apprentice, if she passed her trials soon? The honest truth was 'no'. But if there was no else – and there _was_ no one else – she would not hesitate. 

She licked her lips. Finally said, “Hello Finn. Thank you for the message. I'll sponsor your proposal to the executive committee. And if it succeeds I'll take an apprentice. I have one caution. Have you considered that your proposal sounds very similar to the Jedi system of training? Be careful. Anyway… goodbye.” She ended the recording and sent the message. 

Rey played Finn’s message back nine times, until she had memorized every split second, and then deleted it. Just in case.


	13. Dust

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone, I realise it's a bit late but it just occurred to me to put up a warning for discussion of sexual assault and themes along the same line. Sorry I was so slow about this.

“Are you… smiling?” asked Hux. He was staring at Rey across the war room table. It had been another short, understaffed meeting. Most of the Order’s top officers were stationed at the edge of the territories stamping out numerous rebellions that had boiled over since the destruction of the Hosnian system. Even KL-2266 was out helping the troops. At least this meant that Rey was allowed to sit at the table as Kylo’s representative, even if she didn't actually have anything to say. 

“Perhaps,” Rey said, adjusting her jacket as she stood up from the table. She glanced at him. “Does that scare you?”

Hux made a face as if someone had forced him to sniff the illicit drain cleaner that the career stormtroopers called ‘liquor’. “I thought Ren had trained you out of that sort of thing.”

“Only when he’s in the room,” Rey said, turning to go. She had been smiling to herself, and had no interest in hanging around in case Hux tried to probe her further. It had been three weeks since Finn had first messaged her from Sacorria. They had exchanged recordings every day since them, shaping his idea for apprenticeships . For her, it was the best part of every day. And today he was arriving back on Starkiller to make his submission to the executive. Rey had even decided to go to the space dock to meet him there. She wanted to see the surprise on his face... and also try to figure out whether he was actually happy to see her, or just glad for the help carrying his bag.

“Well, you better watch yourself then,” Hux swept his tablet up under his arm. “Ren's back on the base.”

Rey’s gaze jerked around. Hux shrugged at her. “Didn’t you know? He’s been speaking with the Supreme Leader. Or at least, that was his excuse for not attending the meeting.”

“I’ve been too busy to check my messages,” Rey lied, and hurried out. In the corridor she paused, closing her eyes. He was right. She could feel Kylo’s presence on the planet. And she could feel that he was angry. She should have sensed him long before now, but she had completely slipped out of her habit of reaching out to him with the Force.

Rey took a transport back to the barracks sector of the base. Kylo’s presence was an unmistakable ripple in the air now, so strong she couldn’t believe no one around her felt it. He wasn’t just angry. He was in a full-blown rage, the sort she hadn’t seen for years. She steeled her expression, strode through the halls until she reached their quarters and opened the door.

She didn’t pause until she was standing on the threshold, staring into the large, branched lounge within. The stench of hot metal and burning upholstery filled her nose, and she could see a thin line of smoke trailing from a smoldering segment of the table. The entire room was decimated. Black scars from a lightsaber criss-crossed every surface except the ceiling, and thankfully, the windows.

Kylo stood at the far side of the room, looking out over a thick blizzard that obscured their view beyond a few feet. His mask sat on a stand in the corner. The lightsaber was hooked onto his belt, and he had gripped his hands behind his back as if surveying a military parade.

“Master,” Rey stepped into the room and shut the door quietly behind her. “What happened?”

Kylo’s head lowered a little but he didn’t answer. Rey poked the remains of the room’s console with her toe. “This is a fire hazard. I’ll call the superintendent and arrange new quarters for us.”

She turned and reached for the handle, but was not surprised when he said quietly, “Sno. Wait.” She looked back to find him facing her. His face appeared serene, but she could still feel the rage pulsing beneath his skin. “I have to talk to you,” he said.

She came further into the room. “I’m here now, Master. Whatever is wrong, I’ll do what I can.”

His lips twitched back from his teeth and he looked away. “I have been in… deliberations with the Supreme Leader.”

“Yes. Hux told me.”

He met her gaze again. “About you.”

She frowned at him and stepped around a ruined chair to stand closer to him. “What do you mean?”

Kylo licked the inside of his lips and dropped his hands to his side, balling his fists. At last he said, “Snoke has… rescinded his blessing for your trials.”

Rey stared at him. “What?” and when he didn’t answer she moved in until she was right in front of him. “Why?”

Kylo wouldn’t look at her at first, and when he did she could see the rage was near to splitting him open. And some of it was directed towards _her_. She stood frozen, uncomprehending. At last he said, “The mission to D’Qar. He considers your decisions were… unsatisfactory, for someone wishing to bear the title of ‘knight’,” when she opened her mouth, he cut her off in a rush. “You hindered me in my attempt to kill General Organa.”

“That’s not fair!” she cried. “I made a call to retreat. Your judgement was impaired. I left that out of the report to protect you!”

“Don’t interrupt me,” he roared, and Rey felt as if her spinal fluid had been replaced by engine coolant. Every muscle in her body was tensed. Kylo’s voice returned to a low tone. “You showed dangerous sentiment. You made a reckless rescue of the academy Knight, forfeiting the months of work it took to infiltrate the base.”

“Getting Finn out was a priority – he was the one who found the Jedi archives,” Rey pleaded. “I couldn’t have completed the mission without him.” She knew the First Order was still in the process of de-encrypting the data from Skywalker’s droid, but what little they’d discovered had confirmed that the original archives were somewhere in its memory. They were, at most, weeks away from completing the map to find the last Jedi.

“You didn’t know that,” Kylo hissed. “Don’t deny it. You were incredibly fortunate that things went as well as they did.”

Rey swallowed. “I’m to go back to training?” she whispered. “For how long?”

“There will be no more training,” Kylo shook his head. The rage was subsiding a little beneath his eyes. “You have failed. Snoke considers this… experiment in apprenticeship to be over.”

Rey’s body began to go numb, beginning with her fingertips. She could hear the blood in her ears. Kylo reached out and touched her shoulder. “I’m sorry. Snoke has always considered my demand for an apprentice old-fashioned. He sees the Academy as the only reliable way to produce soldiers of the Force.”

It was all too sudden. Instead of anger Rey felt awash with shame, as if Kylo had caught her sleeping at a watch-post. He could not really mean what he was saying. It was a trick to make her more obedient. He’d withheld the trials before when he wanted something from her. She tried to shake herself awake. She had been staring over his shoulder, hypnotized by the snow streaming past the window. 

“What… what should I do? How can I prove myself to him?”

“There is nothing you can do,” Kylo said quietly. “Snoke does not make these decisions on a whim. He had been considering your place in the First Order for some time now.”

“M-my place?” Rey dragged her gaze away from the snow to look at him. “What will happen to me?”

Kylo’s expression went cold and his shoulders stiffened. “You will have a role. Snoke has… a grand vision. Of an army of Knights, more powerful than any Sith or Jedi before them. The Supreme Leader plays a long game.”

She felt a wrinkle grow on her brow, though she felt like she hung in a void and had gone beyond expressing emotion. She had heard this phrase before – Hux had mentioned it, all those months ago in the war room. “But I will not be part of that army,” she said slowly.

“No. You will be a mother of that army. Your natural talent will live on in the next generation,” Kylo said.

Rey stared at him. Surely she had misunderstood what he just said. She swayed on her feet, a wave of nausea washing over her, and his hand fell from her shoulder. Kylo didn’t seem to notice. His face twisted bitterly.

He was still muttering, “For some reason Snoke is impressed by that Academy knight, the recruiter who got himself captured by the Resistance. He thinks your union, at least for the first few children, will be the best start for his army –”

And this, she saw in his clenched fists and his shadowed eyes, was the root of his rage. This was the reason he’d torn the room apart. Not because she had failed. Because she was being _given to someone else._

“—at least until he can capture Skywalker and somehow, Snoke thinks, destroy enough of his brain to make him controllable, to _use_ his seed — Hux was right, it’s dishonourable, it’s _disgusting_ –”

Rey took another step away from him. She didn’t even have the strength to shake her head.

“I won’t,” she breathed.

Kylo looked at her again, looked into her eyes instead of through her. “Sno, it is already decided.”

“I won’t do it,” she snarled louder.

“You cannot disobey the Supreme Leader,” Kylo shook his head. “Please, don’t make them force you. They’ll drug you and strap you down. It will be worse.”

She gaped at him, putting her hand to her mouth. A thick knot was building inside her guts. It was utterly disorienting that he was already thinking of the details of her violation, had perhaps discussed the necessities with their leader the way they discussed putting down rebellions with overwhelming violence. She felt as if the artificial gravity had been turned off. She couldn’t stand straight. The walls were bending around her. 

“I’ve been trying to change his mind,” Kylo said. “I told him how we feel about each other. That he should at least let it be me that fathers the new soldiers, not the Academy dregs,” he wrinkled his nose. “But he said my time will come once he has determined the healthiest _pedigree_.” He bent he head. "You don't really want him, do you? That substandard ex-stormtrooper? They don't have the prestige we do, Sno. If the female graduates hadn't been sterilised when they were cadets I'm sure he'd be assigned to one of them instead."

He was rambling, and his voice felt like acid on her brain. Rey croaked. "Don't ask me this now."

Kylo's eyes narrowed at her. "You _do_ care for him. Sno, He's not worthy of you! I won't let him touch you. You'll regret it."

“What are you talking about?” Rey gaped at him. “Why would I care about him or you or any of that?"

“It will be alright,” her master shifted forward a little. “I’ll protect you. I’ll make sure you have any comfort you wish for. And in a few years, when Snoke gets what he wants, maybe he will change his mind. If you’re patient.”

She couldn’t breathe. Her chest gave a spasm. Finally she found the air to croak, “I’ve waited a decade.” 

“I’ll change his mind,” Kylo said, as if the mere suggestion wasn’t treason enough for an ordinary soldier to be executed. “Give me a few years.”

It wouldn't be a few years. It would be the rest of her life. Snoke wouldn't stop until she died or her womb went dry. And she couldn't imagine going through this even once, let alone over and over and over... Rey gagged and clutched her mouth again.

“And we’ll have each other. Isn’t that what’s important? We both wanted that—”

“I don’t want you!” she cried. Habit tried to make her call him ‘master’ and she snatched the word back from her tongue. He drew back, frowning at her. She threw her hands out to indicate all that surrounded them, the ruined room and the swirling snow. “I want what you raised me to be! I want to use my power, I want my freedom. I want to be a weapon of justice in the universe. I want to be the hero of all the stories you told me about your grandfather. I want to fulfill my potential.”

“Sno,” his brows grew heavy. “I warned you against ambition, but you have never listened to that. Sometimes doing good for the universe means sacrificing yourself. You can’t pick and choose your orders.”

She sucked in three breaths, in-out, in-out, in-out, in-out, trying to grip her own stammering heart and squeeze it until it went quiet. “Don’t call me that,” she said at last. “Sno is the name of your apprentice. I am no longer her, by the Supreme Leader’s orders. I’m just Rey, now.”

She watched the furrow of his brow, the stupid incomprehension in his eyes, confirming what she had only half-known or half-remembered – he had never asked for her real name, not once in ten years. She backed away from him step by step, reaching for the pad to open the door behind her without breaking his gaze.

She consumed the details in her master’s face, wondering when he had become so frail and ugly. Then she turned and opened the door, waiting for him to lose his temper and try to force her to stay. She wanted him to lash out, knew he was easiest to outmaneuver when he was angry. She wanted an excuse to show him how strong she had become. But he let her go. Could read her mind well enough for that.

 

\---[]---

 

Rey walked, although she barely felt in control of her feet. She found herself in the dock and stepped onto a transport back to the command hub. She didn’t know how much time had passed. The storm was dying down. She watched the peaks of Starkiller rise above the sinking clouds in the faint, setting glow of the star the base was approaching. A pair of stormtroopers standing in the transport beside her were staring at her, and she realised she was gripping her lightsaber with one hand. She didn’t know how long her fingers had been wrapped around the hilt. They were so stiff that it ached to release them.

She got off at the station and walked in the first direction that she could see. She didn't know where she was going, choosing doors that were open or unlocked, getting into the elevators with people who looked busy with their own business and walking a few steps behind when she followed them out. She found herself in the cavernous drill rooms at the bottom of the hub, where a force of sixty security troopers were being wrung out for an unsatisfactory practice. Captain Phasma was marching up and down the ranks shouting at them, her helmet under her arm. Rey stood in the shadows of the doorway and watched until the echoes died down and Phasma sent the troops on an outside march as punishment. 

She waited until the Captain stormed across the polished floor and saw her lurking. Rey had not seen the woman beneath her mask before. They stared at each other for a moment, and finally Phasma said, "What is it?"

Rey swallowed. "I'm – er – Kylo Ren's apprentice."

"I know who you are. What does he want?"

"I want an excision."

Phasma frowned at her. "What?"

"An excision. It's a procedure to remove part of—"

"I know what it is," Phasma snapped. "I thought I misheard you. Why are you asking me about it?"

"You were a cadet overseer. You must have known where they get it done."

Phasma shook her head. "You need to speak to your commander about this. You're not within my purview," she put her helmet on and her voice became tinged by metal. "I have to go knock some sense into my troops. I can't help you."

Her cheeks burning, Rey turned and walked out with her back straight and her arms at her side. She glanced back once and saw Phasma speaking into her radio, watching her leave. So she'd be reported to Kylo by the end of the day, and he'd probably have her confined to their quarters under guard. He might even take her lightsaber. She walked faster.

 

\---[]---

 

The stormtroopers found her sitting in the half-built communications tower, watching glimpses of the snow through the sheet-covered windows. 

She turned her head slowly to look at them. It wasn’t an arrest party. They were just two privates with sanitation badges on their arms. Rey blinked at them. “Yes?”

The closest trooper stepped forward. “Orders for you, Apprentice,” he said. “Please report to General Hux’s office immediately.”

Rey frowned. “Who’s giving the orders?”

“General Hux.”

“Since when does General Hux send his messages by trashboy?”

The other stormtrooper stammered. “He… said not to tell our commander.”

Rey stood up, and the lead trooper flinched back. She tilted her head at him. “You’ve delivered you’re message. Go back to your duties.”

 

\---[]---

 

The office was small for planetside, just wide enough for a desk and a set of shelves. The luxury showed not in the size but in the real wood panels that adorned the walls. A cabinet in the corner was full of malformed spheres under white, silks dust-cloths. Rey slowly realised they were the skulls of various creatures. Hux sat typing while Rey looked around. She had expected Kylo to be here, but maybe he was on his way. 

At last, Hux pushed his work aside and leaned back in his chair with a sigh. He glanced across her. Finally he spoke, "You were a bad influence on him, you know."

Rey stared at him for some time. Perhaps this was nothing to do with her dismissal. Perhaps she’d done something else wrong without even realising it.

Hux shrugged. “It wasn’t your fault, obviously. You had no choice in the matter. But if he’d been left alone he might have been so much stronger. He became dependent on you, as you were dependent on him, and it did neither of you any good,” he shook his head, got up from the desk and came around to lean against it. He tucked his hands into his pockets. “I told Snoke it was a mistake, giving Ren a child to raise, when he was barely more than a child himself.”

He reached across the desk and picked up a thin, rectangular wedge. He held it out to her. “Here. This should keep them from asking any questions. Go to the in-patient clinic in sector fourteen. You’re lucky Phasma dobbed you in to me instead of Ren.”

Rey took two steps across the room and hesitantly plucked the wedge from his hand. “How long have you known?” she asked.

“About where the Supreme Leader is going to get his army? A while now,” Hux grimaced. “Not you specifically, of course. But there have been rumours for more than a year that the new grade of Academy recruits will not be given excisions like stormtroopers should. It’s going to be a disaster. And when you were pulled off all missions after the D’Qar chaos… well. I guessed.”

Rey closed her fist around the wedge. “You’re committing treason for me.”

“Me?” Hux looked affronted. “No. I have plausible deniability. _You’re_ the only one who knows about your new orders. I’m just facilitating a perfectly reasonable request by a subordinate. If you’d been put through the Academy like you should have been, you would have been sterilised years ago and this would all be a moot point.”

“Why are you helping me?” she shook her head. “You don’t even like me.”

“That’s true!” he wagged his finger at her. “But unlike Ren, I am capable of separating my work and my emotions. You had better do the same, if you’re going to report to me,” when she frowned, he made a rueful face that might have been the closest he could manage to a smile. “I am your commander now, Sno. I’ve just sent the application through. I will assign you your missions from now on.”

“Why?” Rey breathed.

He walked back around the desk. “Because Snoke may be moving his chess pieces with his eyes on a distant future, but he misses the danger right in front of us. The Resistance is growing. Snoke wants Skywalker for his breeding experiments. Ren wants to reach the last jedi first so that he can kill him. And all I want is for no one to _wake Skywalker up_. Because that is exactly what they will do. And if the last Jedi snuffs Ren out and returns to battle, I tell you,” he settled into his chair again and folded his hands, “I will need loyal Force-users on my side to fight him. I will need you.”

Rey held her closed fist against her stomach. “Will I be a knight?”

His eyes narrowed. “Pardon?”

“If you’re my commander, will I still undergo the trials?”

“Does it matter?”

She didn’t have an answer ready. It had been her only goal, her entire life for so long, and she couldn't even explain to him why it was important. He waved his hand, a clear dismissal.

Rey left the office with her fingers a little less numb and her headache beginning to subside. She checked when the next transport to sector fourteen was due at the dock, and waited there until it arrived. As it hummed through the landscape towards the hub, she began to piece it all together. Kylo had sent her after the first piece of the map and told her to bring it directly to him. It wasn’t treachery he feared in the First Order; it was that the Supreme Leader would rob him of his vengeance. The Supreme Leader, who commanded KL-2266, who in turn had sent Finn after the map to keep it out of Kylo’s hands. And through it all Hux had wanted the map destroyed, and had even sent an airstrike that nearly killed Rey and Finn in the process.

Rey remembered how she and Finn had sat in the sands on Jakku and feared there were spies and traitors in the First Order. Now she only wished that were true. You could root out and execute spies. You could inoculate an infected system. But there was nothing here except the system itself.


	14. Convergence

Rey lay staring at the ward ceiling, listening to the whirr of a cleaning droid in the corridor. Beds spread out in rows around her, all empty. A needle in her arm fed her a slow painkiller drip. A faint prickle of sensation was beginning to come back into her toes. She had insisted on not being sedated for the surgery. She was terrified that somehow Kylo would find out where she was and burst in to stop the doctors while she was asleep. The whole process took less than half an hour, and did not even require an abdominal incision, so the surgeon agreed to simply numb her from the waist down. Even unable to move her legs, Rey felt she would at least have some chance to defend herself. Rey could tell the doctor wasn't happy about it, but Hux's signature on her referral carried a lot of weight.

It was over now. Rey smiled at the ceiling. She didn't know what was going to happen next. She didn't know whether she would be punished for her decision. She wasn't even sure Hux could transfer Rey to his command without going through Kylo. She hoped she was not so important that Hux could be openly challenged. Right now she had lost all her desire to be important. 

She heard the hush of the door opening and looked over sharply. As her muscles prepared to fight, she felt the first ache low in her abdomen. But she was not in danger: Finn stood in the doorway. He looked just as he had when she’d seen him last, and the relief and joy was so strong that she turned away from him so he wouldn’t see her face.

“It’s alright,” he said in rush. “I’ll leave you to rest.”

“No, stay,” she dug her fingers into the sheets and pushed herself up onto the pillows, trying not to disturb the line in her arm. “You just surprised me.”

He shut the door behind him. The ward was not made for visitors, but he carried a chair over from the other end of the room and sat down beside her.

“How did you find me?” Rey asked quietly, folding her hands in her lap.

He gave her a wan smile. “It’s my job to track Force users. You were like a beacon,” he shrugged. “I had been sort of hoping you’d be waiting for me at the dock when I arrived, but I knew something was wrong as soon as I landed on the planet.”

She pressed her lips together, trying to return a smile. “I’ll be out of this bed after a good sleep. It was just a routine procedure so I could stay on the Network. They were threatening to boot me off.”

His smile faded, and wrinkle growing on his brow. “You can tell me the truth.”

“There’s nothing to tell.”

“Alright,” he paused, glancing her over. “I’ll see if they can find me a bed until you’re ready to leave. I need the rest, I’ve been working double shift to get through the cadet backlog before I put my proposal to the executive,” he yawned hugely, and rolled his shoulders and she heard the joints clicked. “I’m feeling good about it. I found seven cadets who have real potential as Force-users but are too old for the Academy. Seven potential knights we couldn’t get trained without this proposal! Twice what I expected. They'll see the benefit of putting them into apprenticeships, I’m sure of it.”

A lump grew in Rey’s throat. “Oh. I forgot all about your proposal.”

“It’s fine, you don’t have to be there if you’re still recovering,” Finn leaned forward.

“No, it’s not that,” Rey looked at him. She wet her lips. “You’ll… you’ll think less of me, but please, pretend you don’t. At least until I finish.”

“Rey, I’d never,” he gave a short laugh.

She drew in a slow breath. “I really would have taken an apprentice, if you’d offered me one,” she said. “Though I don’t think I’m ready.”

She told him everything, every failure that Kylo had thrown in her face, what he'd wanted from her, the Supreme Leader’s ‘long game’, even Finn’s part in it. She watched the smile fall from his face, and saw a slow, granite-like anger begin to emerge in his eyes. She told him how Hux had saved her, but that he mustn’t tell anyone how much Hux knew. She trailed off when she got to her arrival at the clinic.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen next,” she said quietly. “I’ll never disobey my commander again, whoever they turn out to be. But I couldn’t do what Snoke was asking of me.”

“Neither would I,” Finn growled. “Rey, I would _never_ have gone along with it, no matter what they threatened me with. _Never_.”

“They would have found a way,” Rey said dully. “They’d have made you. Like they’re going to make Skywalker.”

“Yes, I suppose Snoke’s considered every possibility,” Finn looked away. She saw his hand on the sheet begin to clench and slowly unclench, shuddering slightly. After a moment he said. “There’s something I think even Hux has missed. Snoke may know more than he thinks. We know the Supreme Leader has eyes and ears everywhere, but… I don’t think it’s a metaphor. I think Stix – you know, KL-2266 – and all my friends from the Academy who are acting as Snoke’s emissaries throughout the territories… they’re not emissaries. They’re Snoke himself.”

Rey stared at him. “I don’t understand.”

Finn leaned back in the chair, sliding his hands up and down his knees for a moment as if he needed to dry his palms to get a good grip on his lightsaber. “There’s this thing we used to do. Some of it I've only pieced together in the last few months,” he said, and winced. He chewed the inside of his lip for a moment. “You remember I told you about the girl in my class, the one who died?”

“Yes,” said Rey.

“And when we were on Jakku, I told you that in my trials, I didn’t have to take a deserter’s life? Because I had already passed that test?” his voice was a low rumble, like something dangerous beneath the surface of a lake. “What I didn’t tell you was that they were the same life. I killed the girl, TD-2187,” he took a short, trembling breath like a gasp and let it out slowly. “I told you she was terrified of being kicked out of the Academy because she couldn’t keep up. So she had been searching for a way to make herself stronger. She became obsessed with the dark side of the Force. Nobody else seemed to notice that she was becoming more and more withdrawn, more secretive. The day she died, she came to the class during morning warm-ups. There was something… I can’t explain it. Something delighted in her face, triumphant, and cruel as well. She told us she’d found a new weapon, and she’d show it to us if we joined her in meditation. But when we did, she… she had discovered a way to enter the minds of other Force-users and steal their bodies, and their abilities. It would magnify her own strength, create a multi-bodied Force entity controlled by her will. She’d been testing it on others at night, but it only worked for a short time, during certain phases of sleep. She wanted to try it while we were awake and consenting to join her. But it all went wrong. The entity she became was too powerful for her to break the connection. It fed on itself, growing stronger as it consumed more minds and beginning to crush the ones under its control. The more she struggled to stop it, the more she lashed out, the worse it got. Everyone around us was dying. But for some reason… I’ve never understood, not really… I wasn’t under its control. She spared me. And so I did what I’d been trained to do and I ended it. I killed her.”

Finn was staring at a tile on the floor of the ward. After a moment, he continued. “The Academy realised the potential, of course. They tried to get us to recreate TD’s work on a smaller scale. We could never manage it. Maybe she was cleverer than us. Maybe we were just too afraid to go as far as she went. But we got the basics, we could maintain the entity between pairs for short bursts, a few minutes in the training hall, a few seconds in a real fight. I guess Snoke used those first steps and provided the strength of will and the Force to do much, much more,” he shook his head and met Rey’s eye. “He’s inside Stix and the knights. All the time. He’s turned them into a multi-bodied monster, an extension of his own mind. Force only know what will be left of them if he ever lets them go.”

Rey wrapped her arms around her stomach. “And he’s going to collect more. Everyone who goes through the Academy will join his army. The children he wanted me to bear would have become part of him.”

Finn nodded. “I think that’s the long game.”

They sat in silence for a long time. Rey stared at the ceiling again.

"Finn," she sniffed. Suddenly her eyes stung, her face was flushed with blood and tears began to trickle down her skin. She did not remember crying in front of anyone for ten years. "What are we?"

Finn swayed slightly and reached out to grab her hand at last. Then he pushed himself out of his chair and climbed onto the bed. Rey shuffled aside, lifting herself with her elbows and hissing at the throb of pain low between her hips. Finn stretched out beside her on the tiny bed, on top of the blankets, his head half hanging off her pillow. He pulled her hand up to kiss her knuckles and then placed it on her belly just below her breasts, flattening out his fingers overtop of hers so that together they made a warm, heavy weight on her stomach. "I thought we were whatever they told us to be," he said, voice low by her ear. She laced her fingers with his and closed her eyes, letting his words flow over her. "But they don't know either. They don't know anything about us."

“Maybe it’s for the best that your seven cadets won’t ever get trained,” Rey wiped her face with the heel of her hand. "If this is how the First Order treats them."

Finn said nothing for several long seconds, and finally he answered, “I’ve been thinking about that for a while now.” But he didn’t elaborate. And as they lay like that, Rey felt Finn’s breath become slow and even as he fell asleep. Lulled by his warmth and closeness, she soon joined him.

 

\---[]---

 

Lieutenant Mitaka tapped at the tablet in the hands. “This is not a lot of forewarning to alter the agenda, Master Eight-Seven.”

“I’m sure the executive will not mind one less thing to deal with today,” Finn told him. “Give them my apologies. No, on second thoughts, don’t.” He had nothing to apologise for, and the committee would only consider it a waste of their time.

Mitaka raised his head to say something, but as he did so his eyes went wide and his arms snapped to his sides in a short bow. “Lord Ren.”

Finn turned to see the masked Kylo Ren striding down the corridor. He stopped in front of Finn. “Eight-Seven. I thought you were on Sacorria.”

“I had business here.”

“Business with whom?” Ren asked, mechanised voice growing rougher. “With the Supreme Leader? With my apprentice?”

Finn raised an eyebrow. “Not everything is about you or your apprentice, Ren. And you needn’t get jealous. My job here has fallen through. I’m leaving tonight.”

He turned and nodded at Mitaka as he left. He could hear Ren’s low breathing, and realised that Ren would be even more frantic to search for Rey after seeing him here. When Finn left her, she had made him swear not to let anyone but Hux know about the nature of her absence. But the absence itself must have been noted by Ren.

He turned back to look at the figure now looming over a stammering Mitaka. “Do you know she’s in the hospital?”

Ren’s head twitched up. She marched towards Finn.

“What have you done?”

Finn tossed his head back and looked up into Ren’s blank mask from under heavy brows. “Don’t blame me. She was furious when I bumped into her, and I suggested a little lightsaber duel to work off some steam. She got careless and wasn’t watching her flank,” he shrugged. “She’ll probably be in the burn ward for a few more hours, but nothing permanent. She’ll come back when her ego has recovered. I wouldn’t shame her any further by going to see her.”

He could hear Ren’s breathing slow. “Touch her again and you will regret it.”

Finn thought of everything Rey had told him, and he felt a stab of disdain. Did Ren really think he needed to fight Rey's battles for her? He said slowly, “Do you see me as a threat, Ren?”

“Why would I have anything to fear from you?” Ren rasped.

Finn tilted his head. “Not from me. From her,” he sneered, and then switched to a breezy voice to cover it up. “I don’t know why you’re worried. Your apprentice doesn’t want either of us. All she wants is power, and she’ll use us however she can to get it. I thought you knew that.”

He wanted to push Ren as far away from Rey as possible, and perhaps this was a reckless way to do it, but at least it was bloodless. Ren would soon find out that Hux had transferred Rey to his command, and Finn was afraid to what depths he might sink to get her back. Maybe there was a slim chance Finn could convince Ren that Rey had never felt anything for him and never would. But Finn also had to admit there was a pearl at the centre of his story that he feared was true.

Her master had been the one thing that Rey had been unfailingly deferential to, and Ren had allowed Snoke and his own desires to destroy that loyalty. The ideals of the First Order could not replace it. Hux certainly would not have enough to offer her, as he would soon find to his misfortune. A power vacuum had opened in Rey’s life, and nobody seemed to realise that if they didn’t step in to fill it, Rey would take control of her own destiny. And that would be a dangerous day for all of them.

One day, Finn suspected, Rey would even have a choice between power and her friendship with Finn. And he really didn’t know which one she would choose when that day came. That was what made him afraid to get close to her. In the end she had been shaped into a creature like her master, and like Snoke. Whatever she wanted, she had the power to take it; whatever stood in her way, she would destroy. Whether she realised it or not, she was a force of nature. It was thrilling to think she would give even the smallest thought to Finn, and terrifying to think she might want anything from him.

And that was exactly why he was falling in love with her.

 

\---[]---

 

Finn had six hours before he was due back on the shuttle. That didn't give him much time, especially given he was improvising. He wished he could spend the time with Rey to make sure she didn't leave the clinic until she was actually recovered, but there was something else on Starkiller that he needed. He might not get another chance.

There were three research facilities in different regions of the planet, but only one that worked directly under the Intelligence Division. Finn had luck working on his side for now; he had arrived on the weekly rest day. There were only a handful of scientists working overtime in the computer laboratory. There was no receptionist, but an engineer in a white coat with dark shadows under her eyes opened the door for him. She asked him for some identification.

"I'm here on orders from the hub," he said. "I was supposed to be met by the head of your department."

"He's away today," she glanced around as one of her colleagues came up beside her, a man in a too-large, grey leisure suit. 

"That's strange. I was told he'd come in specially for me," Finn frowned.

The man's eyes. "But you're - you're Master FN-2187!" he said, and thrust out both hands. Finn shook them with a smile. "I'm working on your... well, you know!"

Finn smile grew wider. "It's good to meet you. I'm here on behalf of Master KL-2266. She has asked for a quiet update on your progress."

"Yes! Of course," the man made a pained face. "I'm not sure we have clearance..."

"You don't have to give me classified details, of course," Finn nodded. "She's simply asked for a timeframe. And I'd like to meet your team, if any of them are here. KL-2266 is under some pressure to produce results, and it would put her in a better position to respond to those queries if she could tell her superiors how hard you've all been working."

"Yes! Yes, of course," the man said. "Come in, please. I'm Tanner, the head of the computational codebreaking team." 

The engineer looked extremely unhappy as Tanner let Finn inside, but she headed back towards the robotics wing of the building with only a suspicious glance over her shoulder. Inside the lab three other computer scientists were at their consoles, though the room was clearly big enough for at least a dozen. Most of the First Order researchers were hired from the territories, not raised by the First Order from tithes; it was difficult to teach even the brightest stormtrooper cadets creative thinking after a lifetime of unquestioning obedience. The room was speckled with personal touches - photographs of families, posters of home planets, and of popular entertainment. On the wall of one cubicle in the centre, Finn's eyes widened to see a propaganda poster from the academy: his own face looked out at him, standing behind Stix and in front of the other graduates in a line, their lightsabers held high to salute the emblem of the Supreme leader. Above their heads was printed the slogan, _THE FIRST GENERATION_. No mention, of course, of the grade of student above Finn's class, who had all failed their trials. 

The scientists stared at Tanner and Finn as they came in. The woman nearest the door gaped at Finn in his black uniform with the academy badge on the arm. When Tanner introduced Finn, all three jumped to their feet and gave quick bows, with a chorus of "Sir!"

"At ease. This isn't a formal inspection," Finn waved them down. He addressed Tanner, "Why don't you give me an overview of your progress?"

He could tell Tanner was reluctant, but couldn't bring himself to say 'no'. And once he and the other researchers got talking there was no stopping them. They were eager to show off their work decrypting the data from the Resistance droid, and to emphasise how difficult the job was. Its programming was decades old, in a language used by an AI maker's guild that had disappeared during the fall of the Republic over fifty years ago - and the droid had not been young, even then. Simply interacting with its code, even before breaking the encryption, had been a difficult task. Add to that many layers of security protocols over the years - the droid seemed a veteran of several long-gone governments and multiple rebellions - _and_ some modifications by the droid itself, and it was clear the team was still a long way from pulling out one specific set of maps. 

"This is incredible work," Finn gushed, to which Tanner blushed and stammered his gratitude. Silently, Finn was beginning to worry. If the First Order's best minds couldn't crack the encryption, that was a problem for him too.

He noticed that the droid cores themselves were sitting on a desk in the open, each one wrapped in a dust-cloth. It seemed like years ago, not weeks, that he and Rey had risked capture or death to steal them from the control centre of the D'Qar base. So much effort just to prove their worth to a faceless Order, and it had still not been enough: just as he'd feared, Rey had been punished for choosing Finn's life over her mission. She had nearly lost everything. And Finn had no power to protect either of them from the weight of the First Order. But there might be others he could still save.

"You've got the data off the original hardware, haven't you?" he asked. "There's nothing hidden that you could have missed?"

"No chance," Tanner nodded proudly. "We've cloned the drives exactly. We know what we're doing."

"Good. Very good," Finn pointed at the drives. "Do you mind if I take these back with me? So they can be archived under better security."

"Oh," Tanner looked at the rest of his team. "Maybe - perhaps we could ask for a requisition form -"

"No need. I'm heading past there," Finn continued to smile. He strode across the room, picked up the drives and tucked them under his arm. He pointed at the propaganda poster of the Academy's FIRST GENERATION. "It's good to see you appreciate us knights as much as we appreciate you. I'll tell KL-2266 about your dedication."

"Thank you... but..." Tanner held out one hand. Finn shook it, beaming at him.

"Good to meet you all. Keep it up," he said, and walked out.

 

\---[]---

 

When he landed on Saccoria, he was met by one of the Recruitment Office secretaries. The man chattered as he walked Finn to a private speeder that would take them both to the office. Finn's travel bag hung from one hand. He had kept it close throughout the trip.

"Sir, the analysts have detected a possible Force-sensitive in an outer rim planet. I've got you meeting them tomorrow morning. And the latest bloods for the ten-year-old stormtrooper cadets are finished, sir. There's just over two hundred and fifty that scored high enough for further testing. Shall I schedule them in batches over the next four weeks?"

"No," Finn paused at the door of the speeder and looked at him. "I want to see them all this week."

"Sir?" the secretary looked up from his tablet. "This week?"

"I'll do two groups in the workday, plus one after dinner and one in the late hours," Finn nodded. "I want blood results from all nine-year-olds ready by the time I'm done."

"Sir, that's over five thousand–"

"Authorise funds for the technicians' to work an extra shift each day, and give them double pay if they'll work through their rest-day as well. We'll be doing the eight- and seven-year-olds each week after that," he climbed into the speeder. "And I need to find out who's the overseer of one of the cadets from last month. Her call-sign was BR-5311."

"I thought you weren't recommending anyone from last month?" the secretary asked, hurrying into the speeder and sitting opposite him. 

"I'm working on an alternative curriculum," Finn said. "Contact her overseer. Tell them to put her through the SB flight basics course."

"Sir, I think that program's only for training troopers to replace pilots in high-loss border areas, not for cadets–"

"That was an order, not a conversation starter," Finn shot him a cold look. "This is all necessary for the Academy. They know what they're doing."

"Yes, sir," the secretary mumbled, tapping frantically on his tablet.

 

\---[]---

 

Rey had not seen Kylo, and she was both incredibly glad and bitterly disappointed not to have had a chance to face him.

She had been working for Hux for two weeks, and in those two weeks it felt as if she had grown smaller, and stiff as a ship whose hydraulics needed oiling.

When she first left the clinic she was given a white pill twice a day for pain. She thought it was affecting her, so she washed the rest of the bottle down the sink in her new, one-bedroom quarters. The ache inside her abdomen woke her up a little, but when she reported to Hux and shadowed him throughout the days, she never quite felt healed. She could not concentrate. She could not sleep. She was slow to respond to everything. The Force was as strong as ever, but it over-stimulated her, and she struggled to balance it with her bodily senses, her eyes and ears and the shift of anti-gravity stabilizers as they entered orbit.

When Hux told her they were taking a trip to Saccoria, the seat of the First Order control over the territories, she was sure this would be the medicine she needed. She would get a chance to spend time with Finn, either during their business or if she was given a moment’s privacy. She would feel so much better when she saw Finn.

But Sacorria was large, and they were half a continent away, in an old industrial city in which hundreds of factories had been converted into prisons. Rey followed Hux in his inspections, sat listening to his brutal proposals to prevent the riots that had broken out over the last few weeks. Finally they travelled to the Sacorria Capital, high above the cloudy surface of the planet, but it was a big city and Hux never seemed to take a break. Rey did not really understand why she was there. Hux already had bodyguards and personal assistants. She seemed to be nothing more than a status symbol, his own, personal Force-user. She was expected to hover and make conversation with dignitaries and governors from the territories. Many of them seemed to think she had the ability to predict the future over the next few months or years of the First Order, and she gave up explaining that that wasn't how the Force worked.

During her third day in the Capital, Rey was left at the apartment for an hour when Hux went off on a sensitive war meeting with a handful of retired generals. She tried to meditate, which she had never been diligent about before but which she now craved. But she couldn’t calm her mind. She gave up and went to the console in the main room, found the direct line for the Recruitment Office and called through. After a small argument with a secretary who insisted that Master Eight-Seven was with a cadet, she was made to wait a few minutes before he came to the screen.

“Rey,” his voice sounded drawn and dampened by the microphone. “Is this real-time? Are you on the planet?”

“Yes. I’m following Hux around. I wanted to ask your advice.”

Someone off-camera came up to him, spoke near his ear. Finn nodded and murmured something and then turned back to Rey. He rested his face on one hand and she felt again as if she was getting too much information from too many places at once. She realised she was waiting for him to smile, to lean in the way he usually did. Something to ground her. But he looked like he was seeing right through her.

“Go ahead,” he said. He sounded so tired. “I can take a couple of minutes.”

“Well…” Rey had forgotten the words she’d prepared. “You… you were trained as a diplomat, weren’t you? I… I keep having to talk to people. It’s… it’s difficult.”

He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “What do you mean?”

“Important people. Or people who think they’re important. I don’t know what the point of talking to them is. I feel like there are so many more useful things I could be doing.”

After a long pause, Finn said, “You should tell Hux this. Tell him you want to be put on a more hands-on mission.”

“Maybe,” Rey felt her cheeks burn. She said, “How are you?”

“Tired. I’m running on about four hours sleep a night,” Finn rumbled. “Listen, I wish I could talk further, but I have to get back to work. Just… tell Hux what you can do. Ask him for problems he can’t solve with his stormtroopers.”

“Alright.”

“I have to go,” Finn glanced off screen for a moment, and raised his hand to her. “Take care of yourself.”

“You too,” Rey mumbled, and the screen went blank.

She understood for the first time why Kylo went on his rages, so she made herself sit in the chair and not move for a long time.

 

\---[]---

 

When Finn got back to his apartment, he checked the clock. In six hours he had to be back at the Recruitment Office. All he wanted was to crawl onto the small bed in the corner and sleep, preferably for a week. But he still had work to do. He dropped his bag onto the chair and pulled out a small, silver box about the size of a large book. Then he opened the bottom drawer of his clothes dresser, removed the false bottom and gently lifted out the twice-stolen droid cores.

For the last two weeks he had been trying to beat the First Order’s best scientists and decrypt the Jedi archives before them. He had known it would be difficult, and so far he had only been able to get a few operating files off the cores. He was already making quiet contact with freelance hackers in Sacorria’s criminal underworld, if it came to that. But he hadn’t given up yet.

The silver box was his latest attempt to at least download all of the data. It was a multihub, a simple processing unit for repairing nonresponsive droids. It was supposed to test whether the problem was mechanical or software-related. This one, purchased from an antiques dealer, had been made before the fall of the Empire. Finn fumbled for a tangle of cords from his bag and plugged the cores into the multihub, and then the multihub into a power socket. He switched the device on.

The silver surface of the box was illuminated from within by a series of Galactic Basic commands as the device began to scan the cores. Finn rubbed his hand down his face. This was a good start. He dressed and washed for bed while the ancient machine sat whirring on the table.

A few minutes later, just as he looked back at the box, all the lights on its surface vanished. Finn cursed quietly and went back to the table. He tapped the box.

“Come on,” he muttered. “You piece of trash. You can do it.”

A single, circular light appeared on the box’s surface. It flashed, white, then blue, then white again. Finn frowned. He leaned in close.

The box beeped at him shrilly. Not the single, high whine of a broken coil, or the warning beep of an overheated processor. It was clearly _speaking droid_.

“Shit,” Finn reached for the socket to kill the power to the multihub. The box’s beeping became more frantic and high-pitched. Finn stared at it. “You can see me. This damn thing’s got sensors,” he put his hand on the box, searching for the raised ridges that could indicate a lens or a microphone, and was rewarded with the sharp jolt of an electric shock. He drew his hand back.

He realised this wasn’t the sort of simple multihub you could buy down in the markets today for a wad of credits. This thing was designed to communicate with the computer of a droid whose external body was too damaged to even speak.

Finn licked his lips. “I don’t understand droid,” he said. “Can you vocalise?”

There was a low, short series of beeps that sounded like a grumble. Either it couldn’t, or it wouldn’t. Finn pulled the chair over and sat down into front of the box. “What about an alphabet? Are you literate in Aurebesh?”

The box flashed up two symbols that read “no” but clearly indicated the opposite. So it just didn’t want to communicate. Tanner had said it was an old droid, that had a history of changing its own security protocols. That meant it had personality, and that personality was clearly stubborn. A crotchety old man, trapped in a silver box.

“Alright, if you want to be like that,” Finn nodded. “What do I call you, at least?”

There was silence for several long seconds. And then, emerging from the speaker at the back of the multihub, came a voice. It was a recording of what sounded like a young, human man, who said in something of a whine, “Artoo!”

The recording ended sharply. Finn blinked at the box. The droid had kept that recording in its files, when most droids broke incoming sensations down into compressed formats that allowed them to recognise subtle things like human voices without the enormous amount of data that would be needed for a perfect recording of the world.

A memory. One the droid had wanted to hold onto.

“Artoo,” Finn repeated. “I plugged you into this box because I need something from you. A set of maps that you’re carrying.”

A series of unintelligible beeps. Finn wished Rey was here, but he couldn't reveal this to Rey, not yet. After a moment, letters glowed on top of the box one by one, spelling out ‘h – o – m – e’.

“I can’t take you back,” Finn said. "The Resistance would shoot me on sight."

The droid gave an indignant chitter. And then there was a buzz of feedback and another recording began. Finn’s eyes widened as he heard a familiar voice.

_“Wait, stop… There’s an oscillator. I’ve seen the security outline. It'll be in the most heavily guarded region of the planet, Precinct 47.”_

Finn shoved himself out of his seat, breathing heavily. Nausea crawled through him as he remembered that day in the command centre, the shock and shame of the Resistance’s betrayal as he was dragged back to his cell with no hope of ever seeing sunlight again.

“You were listening to us,” he gasped. “You weren’t decommissioned at all.”

The droid was silent.

“Are you… are you blackmailing me?”

All of these recordings were inside the files that the technicians on Starkiller had downloaded in their search from the maps. That data was nothing but lifeless bits of code without the droid’s cores to give it purpose. But there was still a chance that Tanner and his team would find this recording all by themselves.

There was more silence. Finn crouched down in front of the box. “Listen to me, Droid… Artoo,” he said. “I can switch you off and end this conversation whenever I want. But I’m not going to do that. I’m going to offer you a deal.”

 

\---[]---

 

When Hux got back, Rey waited for the right time to speak to him. She kept composing the words over and over in her head, rearranging them, changing her tone, trying to anticipate how he would respond. But the right time never came. He was always busy, always in conversation with someone else, and even when things went quiet he always looked so sour she didn't know how to break the silence.

They went back to Starkiller without Rey ever even seeing Finn in person. The day they arrived, Hux and Kylo Ren went to meet each other about something classified above her station. Rey was not sure whether he knew she had ruined Snoke's plan for her – whether anyone except Hux knew. She was sure she would not escape punishment for it. She glimpsed Kylo briefly through the open door as Hux went in, his mask on, his fingers flexing. She kept her mind shielded, a clear rebuff, and made absolute sure she was not reaching for him with the Force. 

She hated her master with a cool, almost dispassionate rage that she had learned from him. And yet, without contrariness, without pretending otherwise even in her own mind, she wished more than anything to go back to the way things were. She loved him, as a father and a brother and a teacher, as the only family she had ever known. She might even have been able to love him as more than that, if she'd had the time and the will to change her own mind. She stewed obsessively over how she could have changed things, how she could have been a better apprentice, what she could have said to save them. But no matter what she'd done, she knew now that his expectations for her – and for himself – were superhuman.

 

\---[]---

 

A convergence had begun on three planets separated by hundreds of light years: a kind of dance of three minds coming together across enormous distances, an impossible coincidence in the making.

Sacorria was first, where Finn saw Hux across the grand atrium of the First Order’s headquarters. He caught the General for a moment in a doorway to introduce himself and ask about Rey – though he called her Sno, of course. Hux, a little confused, told him she had been left behind on Starkiller.

Finn waved his hand, feigning casual conversation. "What’s your plan for her? She’s very capable, you know. I’ve seen that first hand. I wanted to make sure she’s being given missions that make the most of the capabilities.”

Hux frowned at him. “Why is this of interest to you, Eight-Seven?”

Finn scoffed. “I’m an advocate of training Force-users, obviously. We’re new to the First Order, I know, and we need to be given the chance to prove ourselves if the Academy’s going to secure funding into the future. Sno has proven herself very effective against the Resistance—”

“Well, the Resistance are not going to be a problem much longer,” Hux smiled slickly, looking at his watch. “I already support the Academy, Eight-Seven, there’s no need for the girl to prove anything to me. Now if you’ll excuse me—”

“Wait, what did you say about the Resistance?” Finn frowned, lunging to cut him off. He looked into Hux’s eyes as the man’s expression flashed with alarm and then went deliberately blank. “Is Starkiller cleared to fire against D’Qar at last?”

“That is classified information,” Hux snapped. “Do not repeat it,” and stormed off.

Finn went back to the office shaking. He hid his hands from the secretaries and technicians who hurried up to him as he arrived. "Collate a list of the students I'm recommending to the Academy," he said before anyone else could start talking. "Right down to the seven-year-olds. I want them pulled out of cadet training and sent to Starkiller Base today. And book me a shuttle there tomorrow."

"Sir? Why?" one of the secretaries raised her hand. "You've got the first batch of six-year-olds already arriving for their tests tomorrow. Should we push their appointments back a day?"

Finn shook his head. "I have to leave the younger ones," he said, and felt a pain deep in his chest before he added a lie, "for now."

And on the great, snow-and-fire planet that ate the hearts of Stars, Rey dreamed of an old man on Jakku. He had a hood over his face, but when she raised the lightsaber he lifted his head and he was not Lor San Tekka. He was Sno, white-haired, golden-eyed, her arms covered in black bands. She raised one hand, her palm shining red in reflection of the humming blades, and her other hand curled around her huge, swollen belly.

“Please,” she whispered. “It’s not too late for you.”

But Rey killed her anyway. She lowered the double-bladed staff, her throat closing up as cold grief spread through her as she looked down at the body. And then she realised it wasn’t grief. Something was forcing her way up her throat, into her mouth, and she couldn’t breathe. The lightsaber fell into the sand as she stuck two fingers into her mouth, trying to pull it out, or force herself to vomit. Her vision darkened and she crumbled to her knees and then onto all fours. Something white and solid poured out onto the sand, hissing and smoking with a caustic stink, dripping down her chin—

Rey awoke heaving for breath, her fingers hooked into her lower jaw, teeth biting down hard enough to hurt. She gasped and relaxed back into the thin mattress as sterile, regulated air filled her lungs. In the darkness she lay wondering if her master had heard her. Then she remembered she was in her own room, a small guest room in the living sector of Starkiller. She was alone, and without purpose, and the dream had been meaningless.

She had to decide who she was going to be.

And in the command room under the surface of D’Qar, at the centre of a hive of impassioned chaos, General Leia Organa looked at a huge hologram of Starkiller.

“… suggests we have a week, maybe two, before they’re in position,” the woman at her side said quietly. The rest of the room was making a show of being busy, but everyone knew what the news was about. They glanced over every few moments to see how the General would react.

Organa nodded at the woman. She looked through the hologram and met Poe Dameron’s eyes. There was a long silence.

General Organa broke it. “All non-essential personnel will leave the planet. Two days prep and three days for the evacuation. Make it clear this is a precautionary measure. No need to panic.”

“The whole planet?” someone behind her said, and was hushed by Snap, who was standing close to the General. 

Poe held his commander's eye. "Make it a full evacuation, ma'am. There's no point leaving anyone behind. There's no hope. We can't get through the shield."

"We'll find a way," said the General. In the shadows at the back of the room, there came a rolling growl. 

Snap looked back at the Wookie. "What did he say?"

"He said Han had a plan to get one ship through the shield," General Organa's face darkened. "But Han isn't here. And Chewie can't fly the Falcon on his own. The ship needs a pilot."

A wrinkle grew between Poe's brow. He straightened up with a light in his eyes. "I can fly her."

Organa shot him a frown. "We'll need you in the lead if we make an assault on the thermal oscillator."

"There won't be an assault unless we get those shields down," Poe snapped. "And Jess can lead the fleet. She's ready."

"And then what? You get the Falcon through, and then how do you get the shields down? Poe, you have no idea what you're walking into," the General shook her head. "One day your luck might run out."

The grim smile tugged at the corner of Poe's mouth. "It only has to last a day longer than the First Order, ma’am."


	15. Binary Stars

Rey had just got back to her room after morning exercises when she saw the message notification. It had been sent from a communal console on Sacorria, right in the dock with the roar of shuttles powering up in the distance. She had barely finished watching it when there was the trill of the doorbell. 

Her visitor had a broad grin on his face. "Hello, Traitor."

"Finn! I only just got your message."

Rey had expected to be angry at Finn next time she saw him. She _had_ been angry, although numbly, like a dull, cold chunk of ice deep in her belly. She had told herself he would abandon their friendship soon, just like everyone else had left her when she fell short of their needs. But seeing him now, the anger melted away. She'd been foolish to think he would drop everything and spend time with her on Sacorria. They both had their duties. And he was here now.

As soon as she shut the door Finn held out his arms to her. It was an unfamiliar gesture, one she had seen mostly in her studies, in silent clips made to help cadets understand culture and entertainment outside the First Order. But she understood it, and she went to his embrace and wrapped her arms around his waist as he hugged her shoulders. It felt so easy, so natural, that it wasn't until sparks rippled through her nerves that she realised how few memories she had of touching anyone like this outside of the sparring ring. The few she had were those she'd made on the Network, and that had been different, a daredevil's thrill. This was nothing but safety. They pulled apart before long, smiling at each other. 

"I thought I wouldn't see you again!" she gasped. "You were so busy when we talked last."

"Circumstances have changed," he said quietly. He gripped her shoulder. "I'll tell you all about it soon, but... how are you?"

She ducked her head, glancing around the small room. It looked as if no one was even living here. No personal touches, no pictures, and no mirror. She'd even made the bed to military standards when she left this morning. She shrugged. "I feel like I'm in-between. Do you want some water? Let's sit down," she added quickly, before he could comment. 

Finn held her eye for a moment, and then nodded. "I'd love some water."

He settled himself on the end of her bed, leaning against the wall, and she brought over two full cups before sitting cross-legged at the head. 

"This reminds me of escaping Jakku with you," he stared down into the cup. "On that rotten old freighter. We had no idea what was going on, but I still felt more in control than I do now."

Rey sipped at her drink. It had been such a long time ago, she could no longer remember the feeling of fear over those few days, only the rational knowledge that it had been present. "What about you? How are you?"

He told her about the Recruitment Office, staffed mostly by contractors from outside the First Order. The people working under him were so easy with each other, breaking the small rules against physical contact on an hourly basis, eating and drinking together in the evenings just for the pleasure of it, talking loudly and laughing around the office. It took a lot of getting used to.

"It sounds amazing," said Rey.

"It is," he nodded. "But it still feels wrong. They think I'm so serious."

"I don't think that!"

He laughed. "I know you don't, Rey," he took a breath. "I need to tell you why I came back to Starkiller. Can I ask you something first?" When she nodded, he licked his bottom lip. Rey suddenly realised that they were alone in her room, that her commander was miles away in the command hub, that she had nothing to do today but continue with her own training routines. She'd already broken so many rules. She had nothing to fear from propositioning him except his answer. Then Finn said, "Do you still believe in doing what's best for the First Order?"

Rey blinked. She thought about it for a while, and then said, "Yes. But I don't know what that is. I'm not sure anyone does."

"Fair call," He had both hands cupped around his water-glass, resting on his knees. She saw ripples on its surface as he gave a near-invisible shudder. "Rey, I need a copy of the map. The one they sent us to find on Jakku. And Kylo Ren can't know that I have it."

She frowned, and without thinking twice pressed at his mind with the Force. His thoughts were locked down tight like a steel bunker, but it seemed as if he had been shielding himself for much longer than he'd been on Starkiller. Whatever he was hiding, it was not just from her. "Why?"

"It's better you don't know."

She swallowed. "Another mission from KL-2266 - from the Supreme Leader?" she shifted towards him a little. "Have the archives been decrypted? Is he sending the knights after Skywalker?" she felt her heart-rate rise. "Finn, is he sending _you_ after Skywalker?"

There was a long stretch of silence. Rey remembered that Hux said Kylo would die if he went to challenge the Jedi. Finn knew all of this. Surely he hadn't accepted these orders. But of course, he had understood longer than she had that they did not have choices. 

"I could come with you," she burst out. 

"Like on Jakku," the corner of his mouth twitched. "We could tell Skywalker we ran away and want to help him. Me trying to play the naive stormtrooper, you sitting in the corner looking murderous. It worked last time."

"You got shot in the back and captured."

He raised the glass as if making a toast. "But we got the map."

"Please take me with you. We could kill him together," said Rey quietly. 

He tipped his head back against the wall and let out a slow breath. "Force, I wish I could tell you everything."

"Then tell me!" when he didn't answer, she hissed. "At least promise me you won't let Stix and her crew capture Skywalker. Promise me you'll kill him if you can. It's better than what Snoke has planned for him."

"I have no intention of letting Snoke get his way," Finn held her eye. "I swear to you."

Rey hunched into herself. She looked down at her hands and felt suddenly incredibly thirsty. She tipped up the cup and drank the whole thing in several long gulps, without taking a breath. It gave her a chance to think. Together, the Academy knights might actually have a chance to destroy the last Jedi. Hux would be glad to have Skywalker dead. And if Finn and the knights killed him first, it would keep Kylo from doing anything so reckless as going up alone against his old teacher. No matter what Rey felt for Kylo, she did not want him to die on his quest for vengeance. It would be such a foolish end.

She pushed herself off the bed. "Let's go," she held out her hand to him. "I'll get you a copy of the map."

He looked from her outstretched hand to her face. "Really?" her hand didn't waver. "Rey, you know Ren and Hux will find out sooner or later. Are you willing to face them?"

"I trust you," she said. She saw his expression grow blank as he held something in check, and then he got up and took her hand.

She took him to the command hub, and straight downstairs to Kylo's workroom. There was some commotion in the hallways, and Rey heard somebody mention a possible lockdown. It was lucky they'd arrived when they did, although Rey couldn't believe intruders could have made it to Starkiller undetected, let alone into the command hub. It was more likely a false alarm triggered by some bottom-rung stormtroopers getting lost and bumbling into a restricted area. 

Rey was relieved to find her card still gave her access to the workroom. It looked just the same as when she'd been here last, helping Kylo improve their lightsaber designs from the old specs looted by the First Order. All around them were black, metal walls, heavy, stone tables and dozens of secret compartments invisible to the naked eye. But Rey knew the codes to everything in this room, and her search finished at the security box hidden under the desk. Inside was the tiny data-wedge that the droid, BB-8, had given to her on Takodana. The unassuming chunk of metal and microchips that had started everything. She held it out to Finn ad he took it in his palm with a reverent look in his face. 

“This technology is old,” he said at last, rolling it between his thumb and forefinger. “Are there any copies already converted to a standard navigation format?”

“Yes, in my mas— in Ren’s secure server,” Rey went to the terminal and booted it up. She navigated to the file and turned to Finn. “You’ll need to get a drive to transport the data to your ship. This server is isolated from the rest of the system.”

“Let me look,” Finn stepped in close and leaned around her to reach the keyboard. “I’m not sure about this one. Is this the only copy he has? Any backups with a different compression?”

“No. He was afraid KL-2266 would get her hands on a copy so he’s only kept it on here,” Rey was watching his face, frowning at those closed, steel doors inside his mind. He had plenty of reasons to shield himself from prying Force users if he was helping the knights rob Kylo Ren, but he was already handing her evidence of his duplicity. He should be more trusting of her.

She looked back at the screen just as Finn typed a command into the console.

“What are you doing?” Rey cried, grabbing his wrist.

“I’m wiping Ren’s copy of the map and every file that cross-indexes it,” Finn said, straightening up. He did not try to pull out of her grip, though she was holding his wrist tight enough to feel the bones click. With his other hand he slipped the data-wedge into a pocket in his robe. He looked her in the eye and she felt the steel walls in his mind slide away as easily as playing cards, opening the truth up to her. KL-2266 did not send him to get the map. There were no secret orders from the Supreme Leader. Rey slowly released her grip on his arm.

“You’re destroying all copies of the map so that no one can ever follow you,” she said softly. “You’re not coming back.”

“Nothing is certain,” he answered. “But if I do, it will be when I choose. They haven’t found Skywalker in ten years. They will not find me.”

“You fool,” she drew her lips back from her teeth and grabbed the front of his tunic with both hands, pushing him back against the console. The hood fell back from his face, his eyes staring into hers. “You’re throwing away everything the First Order has given you because of your fear.”

“I will not let anyone else dictate the terms of my life. Not anymore,” Finn was slack in her grip, his mind still open to hers, as if beckoning her in to share his thoughts. “A part of me still believes in the dream of the First Order, Rey. And a part of me needs to learn whatever Skywalker can teach me.”

“No,” Rey shoved him again, the black cloth still locked in her hands, but now it felt as if she was leaning on him to keep her feet. “Stay with me. The First Order needs us."

Finn leaned forward. “Leave them behind.” She shook her head, and he raised his hands to cup her face. “We are stronger together, Rey. Join me.”

She squeezed her eyes closed and gritted her teeth around the scream that swelled up in her throat, but it never emerged. When she opened them again, her grip on Finn’s tunic was relaxed and his face was inches from hers. They moved in the same moment so that she kissed him even as he kissed her. It wasn’t like the strangers on the Network. The two of them were pushing and rough, both shivering, their throats near to whimpering. Rey pressed her fingernails into his neck and scraped them through the tight curls of hair at the base of his skull. Liquid heat spread between her hips as he pulled her body close against his, not with his hands but with the Force. She wished she could fuse with the hot skin of his palm and fingers as they tightened around her face.

They separated with a gasp. Rey tried to kiss him again but Finn turned his head away so that she could only press her forehead to his temple. She bit the lobe of his ear, half in anger and half simply trying to hold onto him.

“I have to go,” he rasped. He drew away to look at her and she let him slip out of her teeth. He was still holding her face, one thumb stroking across the blade of her cheek.

“Why didn’t you just trust me?” she kissed his neck, whispered against his flushed skin. “I would have given you the map.”

When she looked at him, pain jarred his face as if she’d slid a knife into his gut. “Everyone I ever met taught me not to trust. The Academy, the Resistance, even the friends I was raised with…” he shook his head. "I have to go."

"Come back one day," she held onto him a moment longer. "As an enemy or an ally, it doesn't matter. I'll be waiting. I know what I am now. I'm going to change the First Order from the inside, even if it means killing Snoke himself."

"I believe that," he smiled. “I’ll be leaving from the sector six dock in half an hour. If you change your mind, come find me.”

He pulled away from her and it felt like her skin was being torn off. In that moment of agony she wanted to draw her lightsaber and stop him by any means. But then she thought of the ache of healing flesh deep inside her belly where she had chosen the excision over subjugation. She straightened her back and let her hands hang by her side. As she watched him go, a swell of pleasure rose up in her. He had the strength to make this choice. She had the strength to let him go without avarice. It was so alien, so taboo, so deliciously strange for them to share this moment of freedom after their two lifetimes of obedience.

At the door he looked back at her for the last time and nodded, and she bowed to him as she’d been taught to bow to knights who outranked her – but Kylo Ren had killed all the Jedi and would-be Jedi, so there had never been anyone to pay homage to until now.

 

\---[]---

 

BR-5311 was up to thirty chin-ups on the end of the bunk when the yelling started. 

"It's mine. Take it off!"

She dropped back onto her feet and wiped her hands on her trousers as she leaned around the bunk. Two young cadets, no older than eight, were wrestling in the corner of the room. The girl was dragging at the waist of the boy's shirt, trying to pull it over his head. Some of the other cadets in the room looked over; a cluster of them were sitting on a bunk playing with a ragged pack of cards, the rest scattered about in pairs or sitting near the windows staring out at the strange planet. 

"Hey," Brig strode around two youngsters lying on their stomachs on the floor. "Hey! Cadets! Attention!"

The boy tried to disengage from the fight, though the girl took a few seconds longer and did not let go of his tunic until Brig was looming right over her. Then she snapped into a stiff stance, her hands at her side. 

Brig looked between them. The boy was in full uniform, the girl in just her sleeveless undershirt and trousers. Brig jerked her chin at the boy. "Did you take something from her?"

"I was cold, sir," the boy said, in deference to her senior age. "I just took the first tunic I found."

The bunkroom they had been placed in for the last twenty-four hours was only big enough for twelve adults, so all the cadets were sharing a bed. They had sorted themselves automatically into pairs by age, mostly matching up with whoever they had been sitting next to in the shuttle from Sacorria. But since then there had been nothing to do but wait. They were allowed to leave only for a mealtime twice a day. No one had been able to answer Brig's questions about why they were there, even when she simply asked for a gymnasium to take the group for exercises. In the cramped bunkroom, with little to keep them occupied, It hadn't taken long for the younger children to get on each other's nerves.

"That tunic's mine," tears were shining in the corner of the girl's eyes. "My bunkmate back home sowed it up for me. It's mine."

"Why didn't you just give it back?" Brig asked the boy. 

"I offered her mine. They're all the same. She shouldn't be sentimental," the child sneered. 

Brig crouched down until she was almost at his eye-line. "You chose to create conflict. That is unacceptable."

The boy’s bottom lip stuck out a little, but he said nothing. Brig turned to the girl, “And you exacerbated the situation to violence when you should have gone to your superiors. If I was your overseer, I would reduce your meals for fighting.”

The girl struggled to stand still and keep her hands at her side. “No one will care if I report him!”

“Don’t speak back to me,” Brig snapped, and shook her head. “While we’re together, you report conflict to me, no matter how small. Understand?” she straightened up. “I’m going to give him back his tunic, and take yours until tomorrow. If you don’t complain about the cold until then you can have it back.”

The girl’s mouth opened, and then snapped shut again as she realised the consequences that had just been laid out to her. She scrubbed her eyes with the back of her hand until they no longer glinted. She was already shivering; the air in this compound was cooler than Sacorria’s humidity, comfortable for officers in full uniform, but not for eight-year-olds wearing their day clothes.

Brig had taken the tunic from the glowering boy and rolled it up under her arm when she heard the door hiss open. The low conversation in the room dropped to silence within seconds.

Brig turned. Master Eight-Seven stood in the doorway in his sleek, black Academy uniform, his face impassive as he scanned the room. The older children had jumped up from their card game and stood to attention, and one by one the youngsters noticed and followed as best they had been trained. Master Eight-Seven’s gaze swept the room and finally honed in on Brig. She felt a shiver of fear run through her. He looked just like he did in the propaganda holograms in the officer’s quarters back at the barracks. She had no mental skill in the Force, but she felt as if some tendril was testing the edges of her mind, not quite pressing beyond the soap-bubble membrane of her surface thoughts. Then he raised one hand and beckoned her.

Brig had never disobeyed a soldier of senior rank, but for a split second she hesitated, wishing she could stay with the children where it felt safe. She resisted the urge to glance around and pretend she hadn’t seen him look at her, in the hopes he would pick someone else. There was something strange and dangerous happening right now. She didn’t know how she knew: maybe it was the Force. More likely it was because she had survived to reach thirteen years old in the First Order cadets without a serious brain injury, and you did not do that without a clear head for danger. What she did know was that when things were dangerous, cadets had to look out for themselves, and troopers too. No one else cared about them.

She tucked the tunic under her arm and went out with Master Eight-Seven. The door shut behind her.

The bunkroom where they had been stationed was at the end of an empty corridor. Master Eight-Seven had a bag in one hand, which he put down against the wall gently. Brig glanced at it and saw a silver box through the half-open fastening. The knight was half-turned towards the wall and seemed to be considering something, his hands behind his back.

At last he looked at her. “Did your overseer send you on the flight course?” he asked.

Brig answered in the clear, confident voice – almost a shout – the way she had been taught to address high-ranking officers. “Yes, sir. I’m not finished yet. I have to complete remedial navigation, sir.”

“That’s fine. That’s alright. I have a droid that says it can navigate,” Eight-Seven paced across the width of the corridor and back again. Brig did not dare tell him that droid autopilots were always supposed to be supervised by humans.

Master Eight-Seven looked at her and went down onto one knee. Brig was tall and broad for her age, so now she was looking down at him, and that was more frightening than everything else that had happened in the last few days. She made sure none of that fear showed on her face.

“BR-5… may I call you Brig?” he began, and she nodded. “Brig, I’m going to go to learn the Force from a great master, and I want to take you and the other cadets with me. You will learn more than you could ever learn at the Academy, and you will have a much better chance of surviving your training. But this master is an enemy of the First Order, and that means we will become traitors if we seek him out. Do you want to come with me, if this is your only chance to learn how to use the Force? If I can’t promise you the First Order would ever accept you back?”

Brig stared at him, her arms tightening around the rolled tunic. After a moment she said, “What do you want me to do?”

“I’m not giving you orders. I’m asking what _you_ want.”

What Brig wanted was to break his gaze, but she couldn’t move. She took in every feature of his face over the long seconds of silence. She had thought of him as old in the generic way all adults were old, but she saw now that he was young. Not much older than the seniors who were about to finish their time in the cadets. And she could see in his dark eyes that he wanted this, and that he had convinced himself it was best. He knew much better than her about the Force. So he must be right. And even if he wasn’t, Brig had a good head for danger. She thought she could handle it.

At last she said, “I’ll follow you, sir.”

“Good,” his head dropped forward for a moment, eyes closed. He straightened up and got to his feet. “I need you as my pilot and second in command. I had a friend to do both, but she decided not to come. I’m going to offer the other cadets the same choice.”

“There’s no point, sir,” Brig reached out and seized his hand as he turned back to the door. “They’re trained to obey. They’re not ready to choose.”

Master Eight-Seven’s mouth went flat, and then shifted into a soft smile. “I have to try,” he said. “At least so that they remember it later.”

 

\---[]---

 

Chewie stood watch at the doorway, his blaster at the ready. An unconscious guard lay trussed up in the corner. Poe leaned over Breha Rook as she tapped on the security console keyboard with what seemed like agonizing slowness. 

“How’s it going?”

“Exactly as badly as it was thirty seconds ago, sir,” she said. “I can’t do this with you hovering like that.”

Chewie growled something from the doorway. 

“He says he can see something happening with the sun,” Poe translated.

Breha looked over her shoulder and then shook her head and turned back to the console. Her pupils were blown wide and her fingers were shaking as she rested them on the keys. Sweat matted the roots of her braided hair and dripped down one temple. Poe wasn’t sure how old she was, but he was pretty sure she’d lied about her age to get herself admitted to the Resistance volunteers. She’d had family on Thyferra, in the massacre, and from what he understood she’d run away from a very prestigious tech college to join the fight. And now she had a top commander breathing down her neck because the fate of the Resistance was relying on her breaking into the First Order’s security system and bringing down the planet’s shields. That might be an average day for Poe Dameron, but for a runaway kid it was quite a big ask. 

He put his hand on her shoulder. “You can do this,” he said quietly.

 

\---[]---

 

Rey walked back through the hub as if through a fog, seeing stormtroopers and officers only when they passed so close to her that they had to step aside to avoid her. She was heading to Hux’s office, although if he was back on Starkiller he would probably be on the bridge. But she needed a direction, she needed to know she had made the right choice, and she could wait in Hux’s office until he returned. She’d tell him what she’d done, and see if he was still willing to protect her. If not – well, she’d make it clear to him it was in his best interests that they worked together. 

She reached his door and raised her hand to press the intercom, but the door opened before she could touch it. Rey had taken only a step or two across the threshold when she looked up and found it was not Hux behind the desk. It was Kylo Ren. The door slid shut behind her.

He was sitting behind Hux's desk, turned to the side so that she could see his mask in profile, over his shoulder. There was something moving on a screen in front of him, though at this angle Rey couldn't immediately make it out. 

"Master," she said, before she could catch herself. 

Kylo Ren stood up without looking at her and walked around the desk. At last Rey saw the screen he had been watching. It was a video feed of a room from a vantage from high up in the corner. Dark walls and black, stone benches; Kylo’s workroom. In the video, two figures separated, their hands clutching until the last moment, before the man in the black uniform went to the door. The other figure bowed to him before he disappeared. The video froze, the woman in grey standing alone, staring at the door, raising both hands to push her hair off her face. She tipped her head back and looked almost at the camera, but did not quite see it. The video froze, her face a pale oval, and then there was a flicker and she vanished as the loop started again and the two figures entered through the door. 

Rey tore her gaze away from her own face and looked at Kylo's mask. "Why didn't you send security after me?" 

"I needed to hear it from you," he rasped. "Are you going to join him?"

She swallowed, raised her chin. "No."

"You threatened the Supreme Leader's life. I could have you executed for that alone.”

“Then why haven’t you?”

“I want to give you another chance," he stood over her, so that she had to crane her neck to look at him. "If you tell me the truth."

"You can see into my mind. You know it's the truth," her voice was clear and unafraid. "My place is here."

There was a long moment of silence, and then he said with uncharacteristic softness, "Thank you."

He raised his hand, not fast as if to strike her, but to caress her face. She didn't flinch until she felt the push of the Force. She slammed up her mental defenses, but it was too late, or he was made stronger by rage. Unconsciousness smothered her instantly.

When she came to she was lying on the settee in Hux's office. She was paralyzed, like being half-awoken from a dream, her eyes opening sluggishly but her chest locked tight. She ordered herself to stay calm until she had collected her thoughts, and then pushed Kylo's will out of her mind. The paralysis broke and she sat up with a long, croaking gasp. If she had been untrained, she might have been asleep for hours, but the clock on the wall told her less than a minute had passed. Kylo was already gone. 

Rey lunged for the door, her teeth bared, crying aloud, "Don't you touch him!" 

The corridor outside was empty. She did not even know in which direction was the sector six dock, but she closed for eyes for a moment and sensed them both converging on a point. The impressions they made in the fabric of the Force were familiar yet unmistakably distinct; Kylo Ren a crimson furnace that frayed at the edges, Finn a singular pulse of rippling gold. Rey's lightsaber hung at her belt, a comforting weight. Either Kylo had forgotten to disarm her as he rushed to the hunt, or he really thought she was not much of a threat.

She would make sure that was the last mistake he made.


	16. Supernova

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much everyone for reading! God, this fic was not supposed to be this long.

“Sir, what is that?” Brig asked as she marched beside Finn along the skywalk. In the distance above them, a thread of yellow plasma peeled away from the sun and disappeared over the horizon.

“It’s nothing,” Finn put his hand between her shoulders. “Keep moving.”

Behind Finn and Brig, twenty-two children followed in two neat rows. Not a single one had stayed in the bunkroom. Although he couldn’t be sure any of them had truly understood what he was getting them into, it was too late now to send them back. He had brought them here and he had to get them off this planet. It was not just the First Order they had to fear. Stormtroopers were being mustered at the entrances to all sectors, and half a dozen pilots had raced passed them a few minutes before. The Resistance knew they were being targeted by Starkiller’s unfathomable weapon, and they would not go down without a fight. Finn wasn't sure he trusted the Resistance to recognise children instead of future stormtroopers, and he didn't know if he could protect all twenty-three kids if they got caught up in a full-on assault on the base. They needed to leave now.

Finn had chosen the small, quiet dock in sector six because it was unlikely to be in use. But when he reached it, the controller at the door to the hanger blocked their way.

“I’m sorry, sir. All landing pads are in lockdown,” he said. “There’s been a shield breach.”

So the Resitance had already broken through. He had expected them to eventually, but not so soon. 

“We have a scheduled flight for training,” Finn growled. “Let me speak to your superior officer.”

“I’m the only officer on duty, sir,” the controller shook his head. “All the others have been diverted to the fighter docks.”

Finn gritted his teeth. He could feel twenty-three pairs of eyes on his back. There was a narrow strip of window that led to the open-mouthed hanger and the roofless pad beyond that, through which he could see the small shuttle he’d ordered. “Are we at least fuelled up and ready to go as soon as the lockdown is lifted?”

“Yes, sir,” the controller nodded. “But it will be several hours at least. I suggest you go back to your command centre until then.”

Finn raised his hand with a soft shrug. He gently pushed at the man's mind. “The lockdown does not include us. Go back to your station and keep the dock open.”

The controller bow quickly. “Yes, sir. Proceed onwards, sir.”

Finn turned and shot a quick smile at the rows of staring cadets as he opened the door. “Head to the ship. Hurry.”

He made sure they were all in the hanger before he shut the door. With a quick swipe of his lightsaber he welded it shut. He turned back to see the children looking over their shoulders at each other, whispering to each other. He clicked his fingers and pointed at Brig. “Keep them moving!”

“Yes, sir,” she shot back, pushing the first two cadets onwards. She ushered them into a slow jog across the hanger. The air was freezing out here, exposed to the open atmosphere of Starkiller, and Finn watched her bundle one bare-armed girl into a tunic as they ran to the ship.

It was a small carrier, unarmed but equipped with a brand new hyperdrive. It was speedy enough to be maneuverable in a dogfight, though without Rey as their pilot a fast ship would do them little good. As he climbed the ramp Finn was relieved to see a stack of crates boxed into the rear of the ship; he'd ordered the ship packed with enough basic supplies for a month, if they couldn’t find Skywalker as quickly as he hoped.

The cadets went to the seats and strapped themselves in. They were all silent now, faces bloodless, staring at him as he strode the length of the ship to the cockpit. Brig was adjusting the pilot’s seat and pulling the belts over her shoulders. She could barely reach the pedals. She might talk like an officer, but she was still just a kid. Thirteen now, if he remembered correctly. And he’d coerced her into committing treason and piloting a commandeered carrier ship off the most fortified base in the First Order. He leaned over the back of her seat.

“You know these controls?”

“Yes, sir,” she said with an annoyed huff, closing the door and flicking on the anti-grav to get them out of the hanger. The ship wobbled and one wing scraped the floor with a shrill screech. A child behind Finn gave a yelp and one of the older cadets else hushed them. “I’ve got it,” Brig babbled as she righted the ship. “Sorry.”

“Take your time. If you’re unsure, pause and consider your training,” Finn put his hand on her shoulder and gave it a squeeze. He pulled Artoo out of his bag. He’d strapped the droid cores to the multihub to keep them together, and now he tied the straps to the autopilot’s console and plugged the droid in. 

The blue and white circle flickered on the surface of the silver box, and then on the screen of the autopilot as Artoo infiltrated the ship's computer. The droid beeped and the holo-projector on the controls flickered to life. Green segments of star-maps hovered above the levers and gauges, arranging themselves until a glowing path stretched across them. The final piece was missing. Finn pulled the data-wedge out of his pocket and plugged it into the console, and with a joyful trill from Artoo the final piece of the map appeared on the hologram.

“Can you tell the ship where to go?” Finn asked breathlessly, unable to keep a smile from his face.

Artoo beeped in what Finn hoped like hell was an affirmation. Finn grinned and laid his hand on the silver box. “I’m going to take you back to him, little buddy. Sorry I couldn’t bring the rest of you with us.”

Brig was watching him out the corner of her eye, and the ship was drifting.

“Cadet, watch the door of the hanger,” Finn snapped, and she jumped and straightened their path. They slid out into the open, hovering above the takeoff pad. The sun above them was duller than it had been only a few minutes before. Thin spurts of snow whipped past the windscreen.

Finn went back to the doorway and stood at the front of the cabin. The cadets looked at him, clutching the straps of their seats. One of the youngest ones was wiping her eyes. Finn could feel the fear flowing off them like the chill of a passing shadow. But he looked across them and remembered Stix when she and Finn first arrived at the Academy, all skinny limbs and knobbly joints. She'd been constantly sniffing and wiping her nose, and when he'd made fun of her for it she'd punched him in the gut. He'd pushed her down and the tutors threw them both in the box; but the two isolation chambers were close enough to whisper to each other through the vents, and by the time they were let out they were the firmest of friends. He saw Stix in these cadets, and he saw the rest of the knights he'd been raised with, and the faces of all the others who had never made it that far. Finn lifted his chin and set his shoulders straight. He wished he could have got the rest of the Force-sensitive kids out, not just the younger ones but the students currently being run through the Academy’s machinery. Most of all he wished Stix and his classmates were here on the ship with them. They’d never have come, not even if he could have pulled their shattered minds out of Snoke's claws and pieced them back together. They were too loyal, too proud, and they believed too strongly in the cause. He’d been the same. But he still wished they were here. And Rey most of all. 

There would be no more children for the Knights of Ren to chew up and spit out, not without Finn to recruit them. Maybe Snoke would find a way to breed Force users without needing to screen them from the tithes. But by the time those children were old enough to be put on the same path that Finn had walked, he would return and stop it all. 

“Cadets,” he said. “You were stolen when you were too young to know it, and now I’m stealing you again. I hope one day you’ll understand why.”

They watched him silently and waited for orders he couldn’t give.

“Sir,” Brig called from the cockpit. “Sir!”

There was a sharp, high edge to her voice that he hadn’t heard from her before. He hurried back to the front of the ship. Brig had them in takeoff position, ready to leave. There were no alarms beeping, no lights flashing a warning. She was pointing out the window, across the dock and back towards the gaping mouth of the hanger.

There was a figure there in a billowing, black robe, whose oncoming Force presence was like the pressure before a storm.

“Shit,” whispered Finn. Brig looked up at him, and Finn met her eye. “Open the ramp.”

Brig hit the lever, and the ship wobbled for a moment as the door opened in the side of the carrier. Cold air and snow rushed inside and the cadets shielded their faces with their arms.

Finn took a breath and put his hand on Brig’s head. She looked up at him.

“You’re in charge now,” he said. “Get them off the planet and into hyperspace as soon as you break atmosphere.”

“What?” Brig cried as he turned to go. “Sir, don’t go!”

Finn strode through the cabin. At the door he looked back at the cadets. “Brig is your commander now. Protect each other and learn everything you can.”

Their wide-eyed faces looked between each other and him, a murmur rising to a chorus of protests. He wished he could explain, but there was no time. He unclipped his lightsaber from his belt, jumped down from the hovering ship onto the cold concrete of the takeoff pad.

“Go!” he yelled back into the open door. “Go, now!”

He felt the incoming blaster shots with the Force a moment before they aimed for the ship's engines. A platoon of all-weather stormtroopers were up on the observation deck below the control tower, six rifles drawn on him. His lightsaber was drawn and spinning as they fired, knocking almost every bolt aside, deflecting one back towards the deck. He couldn't aim well from this distance but it made the troopers take cover and stop firing. One blast grazed his right thigh and kept going, passing between the lowered flap of the ship’s wing and the landing gear and exploding into a burned pucker of concrete. Finn hissed and stumbled, feeling his torn muscle tremble before the pain of the burn hit him.

Behind him, the ship’s ion engines flared to life and it began to rise. Across the dock, Kylo Ren reached out his hand and the ship jolted to a stop in mid-air, the engines flaring and the metal groaning. The door was just clicking shut.

Finn stretched his arm out towards Ren and pushed back with the Force, feeling the other knight's presence in the air and smothering it. Their wills clashed and spun into a whirling wind between them, from which the carrier ship broke free and its engines began to purr again.

“Traitor!” Ren’s deep, metallic voice bellowed above the cold wind.

Finn glanced at the ship as it lifted off the platform. He had to keep Ren’s attention on him. Had to keep him angry enough that he couldn’t think straight, focusing his anger on Finn instead of the ship full of cadets. He gritted his teeth through the growing pain of the burn and raised his lightsaber to point at Ren.

“Yes,” he said. “I’m the traitor who’s going to fuck your apprentice.”

Ren roared through his mask and lunged towards him, racing across the concrete with inhumanly long steps. Above them, the carrier rose towards the clouds and faded against the rushing snow.

They were gone.

Finn crouched and turned the angle of the lightsaber into a defensive stance. He could feel the rage pulsing from Ren like concussion blasts in the Force. He was not coming to arrest Finn for treason, but to execute him right here under the dying sun. There was no finesse to Ren's attack, no time for them to consider each other. Ren slammed his lightsaber towards Finn as if trying to break down a wall.

Finn turned the blow aside and leapt away, keeping the length of his blade and his arm between them. Ren struck again, and Finn turned him again, shoving at him with the Force. The invisible slap made Ren stumble, and Finn dashed into range and stabbed his blade towards Ren's face. The other man jerked backwards, but the tip slashed across the visor of the mask in a shower of sparks. The stench of melted glass filled the air and then was whipped away by the wind as Finn swept in again, aiming for Ren's arm this time. But even blinded, Ren just managed to raise his lightsaber and block him on the full. Their blades locked together, both half-crouched and braced against the concrete. Ren’s height gave him leverage, but Finn let his weight hold him, and as he leaned in Ren's spine began to curve backwards. His lightsaber was inches from the handle of Ren's and sliding closer.

Then Ren gave ground and kicked out in the same movement. They were so close that his knee collided right against the burn of the blaster on Finn's thigh, and Finn’s leg collapsed under him. They both sprung back, their blades separating, and Finn shook himself, concentrating through the throb of pain. Ren spun and scooped his hand under the chin of his mask, tossing it aside with a wordless yell.

They circled each other. Finn had never seen Ren's face before; he’d been standing close behind him when he’d removed his mask on D’Qar, looking only at the back of Ren’s head. He'd expected something twisted and drained by years of exposure to the Force, with a red gaze and skin that cracked at the edges. But the greatest knight in the First Order looked like an ordinary young man, dark-eyed and breathing through gritted teeth. Finn stepped in a slow circle, keeping half his attention on the cluster of stormtroopers on the observation deck. They had their rifles trained on him, but they weren't firing. Ren must have told them he wanted to kill Finn himself. 

"Look at you," Kylo Ren snarled, his voice high and thin without the mask. "You have no balance in you, no power. You've succumbed completely to the Light Side. You’re weak."

Finn took a small step backwards as well as to the side. "I walked away from the dark because it failed me. It will fail you too, Ren, and those you love."

"You corrupted her!" Ren leaped forward and slashed out, and Finn parried easily, shoving him back again. He took a few steps away from the gasping Ren and the distant stormtroopers. The light was fading to a dusky grey now, as if the sun was behind milky clouds. 

"You don't love her," Finn shook his head. "You simply have nothing else to cling to. Nowhere to go.” 

“You know nothing about me,” Ren hissed.

“I know that the Dark Side of the Force does not share. There isn't enough room in the First Order for all of us. There never was. Snoke will consume us or destroy us once we've served our purpose," Finn took another step backwards, lowering the point of his lightsaber. "Isn't that what your father said?" 

From the shadows of the ships he had heard that moment of hushed conversation, above the bootfalls and the chaos as he tried to reach for Rey. The old man, Han Solo, offering his last hope to his son. Finn wasn't even sure if he was taunting Ren by reminding him this moment or offering him a ceasefire. 

Ren took it as a taunt. He roared again and threw himself on Finn, with such wild energy that Finn barely managed to turn each blow aside. He stumbled backwards, closer and closer to the edge of the takeoff pad. There was no other way out. Finn gathered the Force to his breast, breathed in deep and shoved outwards with all his strength. Ren hunkered down and held his ground, but he slowed his frenzy. And then there was a moment of real luck. A flash of red-gold that made them both glance out across the rocky surface of the forest. In the distance, where the enormous thermal oscillator was set deep into the planet's heart, there was a plume of fire rising into the sky, and then two more in quick succession. Dozens of starfighters that looked like only tiny specks raced around the edge of the huge machine like whirling rocks around an asteroid belt. For a brief moment Ren took his eyes off Finn.

Finn stepped backwards once, twice, and then turned and jumped.

He threw himself as far as he could. The wall of the landing pad was solid concrete and scaffolding for over two hundred feet before it turned to rough, rocky hillside coated in snow, easing into a shallow slope another hundred feet below. Finn spread his limbs and slowed himself with the Force as best he could, aiming for a runnel of thick snow away from the rocks. He landed on the steep incline in a crouch and rolled, snow flying around him and into his face, tucking his head and hands into his body as his momentum carried him down the hill. 

He used the last of his inertia to spring to his feet and run, shaking the snow from his clothes and hair. His burned leg stung and he could feel a trickle of blood down his thigh where he had ripped the skin open further. He paused to grab a handful of snow and press it against the wound, packing it firm into the charred hole in his trousers. He headed for the trees, not looking back to see if Ren was following him, sure he had mere seconds before his hunter would be on top of him.

As he reached the edge of the forest he was brought up short as if he'd hit an invisible wall. He knew this place. No – he had _seen_ this forest before, the creaking branches, the falling snow, the dying sun above him. It had been in his vision on Takodana, when he held the lightsaber in the cellar. There had been a terrible darkness in this forest, a creature so powerful it had reached out to him even through the vision and almost touched him. Was that creature Kylo Ren? Or was Finn running towards something even worse?

He looked back over his shoulder. He could just see Ren leaning over the edge of the platform, the wind sweeping his robe around his legs. Staying put was certain death. Finn turned his face to the forest and clambered through the snow, dragging his injured leg. The shadows of the trees swallowed him up.

 

\---[]---

 

Rey reached the sector six dock as the sky grew dusky and full emergency alarms began to blare, calling all pilots to their action stations. At the dock was a dazed controller, staring at the door to the hanger, which seemed to have been blasted open. When she snarled at him he pointed wordlessly up a flight of stairs and she sprinted up them.

She burst out the door onto the observation deck, a freezing wind cutting through her clothes and disordering her short hair around her face. There were six stormtroopers in cold-weather gear, three with rifles on tripods and three holding them freely in the crooks of their arms. They were all looking down at the pad below, as if waiting for some signal.

The leader with his coloured pauldron turned at the sound of the door and marched towards her.

“Ma’am, go back downstairs,” he raised his hand.

“Where are they?”

“Please remove yourself. Lord Ren said that if you came here, we were to escort you back to the command hub.”

Rey bared her teeth at him and unclipped her lightsaber from her belt. “Where is Kylo Ren?”

“Put down your weapon and come with me—”

A single blade extended from her lightsaber. In a split second Rey swept it through the air and silenced the trooper. His helmeted head hit the platform with a crack and rolled to the feet of his nearest soldier. The smouldering stump of his neck steamed in the cold air as his body crumpled.

The remaining troopers stared at her, backing away half a step. One of them began to raise his rifle and his neighbour grabbed the barrel and forced it down again.

Rey felt nothing. No grief, like the bothan she had stabbed on D’Qar and fled without helping, no confusion like the old man on Jakku. The death had come so much easier this time. The man had been in her way. She stood breathing heavily, her skin no longer feeling the cold. 

The nearest trooper pointed down towards the takeoff pad. “They both jumped,” she said in a voice that just barely suppressed a shiver.

Rey nodded at her. “Thank you, soldier.”

They all hurried to get out of her way as she strode towards them, but she stepped up onto the rail and leaped the thirty feet down to the concrete, landing in a crouch. At the edge of the pad, she looked down in time to see a figure in black robes vanishing into the trees, carrying the familiar red cross of Kylo’s lightsaber.

 

\---[]---

 

In the bridge of the command hub, Hux looked out over the darkening landscape of Starkiller. _His_ Starkiller. There were flames in the distance, smoke rising in smears against the fading light.

“Sir, the Resistance fleet had inflicted major damage to a third of turrets but our fighters are maintaining the perimeter around the vents," reported a tactician by his side.

“Oscillator is stable, sir,” a technician added from below him.

“Weapon fully charged in five minutes," said another.

Hux smiled. “Begin the final targeting protocol.”

 

\---[]---

 

Finn stumbled through the thick snow, his lightsaber retracted in one hand so the glow didn’t give him away, his other hand clutching his leg.

He had to kill his hunter. But even then, there was nowhere to go. Even if he survived this fight, stole a ship and made it off the planet, he couldn't follow the cadets without the map. He could go back to the Resistance, but the Resistance were as treacherous as the First Order. Who could he possibly trust? 

At least the wind was not so loud down here in the trees. It was almost peaceful. He heard Ren at the same moment that he felt him, and spun just in time to block the strike.

 

\---[]---

 

Poe listened to Red 1 cry out and vanish from the radio as the Falcon lifted off the planet’s surface.

“Get to the guns,” he told Chewie. “We’ll go in there and give them some cover. Someone must have a chance to get into that oscillator and hit the turbines.”

Chewie undid his belt and got up. Breha Rook sat in the engineer’s chair behind them, and Poe glimpsed her face over his shoulder. She was frozen in her seat, hands balled on her knees, her eyes wide. She had done what they brought her here for. She’d brought down the shields. But she must have realised as well as Poe had that if they went into that battle around the oscillator, they were unlikely to come out again. Everybody joined the resistance saying they’d die for the cause, but nobody was actually ready.

Poe leaned over the controls and cut the lights to hide their approach as they soared over the forest. And then he stood up in his seat and looked down into the depths of the trees.

“Do you see that?” he asked. There was a red glow in the shadows, flickering in and out between the branches that blocked their view. “Is that… is that a lightsaber fight?”

The sight alone was strange enough, but stranger still, both lightsabers were _red_.

Chewie snarled from the doorway and Poe nodded at him. There was no time to investigate. He sat back down. “Let’s go see what makes this hunk of junk famous.”

 

\---[]---

 

Finn was driven back again and again, the snow sucking at his boots and the trees rearing out of the darkness when he dodged Ren’s blade. Huge boulders loomed around them, their surfaces mottled black through caps of white. The hiss of the snowflakes on the lightsabers filled the air beneath their grunts.

The sunless sky opened up above them as they came out into a clearing, and Finn realised to his horror that Ren had driven him towards a low ravine. He was hoping to trap him in the narrow corridor between two sloped rocks, but maybe Finn could use the terrain first. He pushed Ren back for a moment and then bolted for the fissure, forcing his bad leg to put on speed, hoping to reach the other side with a few seconds to spare. When Ren followed, he would have to come from one direction, and Finn would have both the high ground and room to swing his lightsaber, while Ren would be pinched between the walls of the ravine.

He heard the crack and felt a warning in the Force at the same moment. He turned just as he reached the first narrow of the rocks to see that Ren had brought down a tall tree, and it was falling right into the ravine where Finn was standing.

With a gasp Finn raised his hand and threw all his strength behind the Force. The tree slowed and stopped its fall, the branches crunching against the walls of the fissure behind him and the huge length of the trunk hovering a few feet above Finn’s fingers. It blocked out the stars and creaked as thousands of pounds shifted and strained at their fibres. Sweat broke out on Finn’s neck and was frozen in droplets within seconds. The weight of the tree pressed down on his will, edging slowly closer.

He raised his lightsaber and sliced through the trunk right above him, pushing outwards with the Force as he did so. The tree crashed into the snow in two pieces, the branches in the ravine and most of the trunk skidding away across the clearing with the force of his throw. Finn stood panting for a moment, and then raised his lightsaber as Ren leaped down from the rocks above, right on top of him.

He turned to meet the first lunge, but he was trapped by the blocked ravine and jarred by the weight of the tree he had just pushed aside.

For those few seconds, he was too slow. Too slow. From a feint, Ren sliced back across his defense even as Finn stepped away to avoid the blade. Instead of cutting open his chest, it struck the inside of his sword-arm.

There was no pain at first, only the sudden absence of weight on his shoulder. Finn stumbled back, the deactivating sound of his lightsaber ringing in his ears. He looked down at the dark shape of his arm where it lay in the snow, still in the black sleeve of the Academy uniform, the weapon locked inside his hand. A half-cauterized artery trickled blood from the stump that ended a couple of inches above where his elbow should have been. It splattered on the snow, almost black in the dim light.

Ren stepped back with the twitch of a smile in the corner of his mouth, his pose suddenly relaxed. He swung his lightsaber in a circle in his palm, letting the tip of the blade hiss through the snow.

Finn reached out with his left hand, calling his lightsaber to his shaking fingers. But Ren was on him already. He hit Finn in the jaw with his closed fist, knocking him down onto one knee and splitting his lip. Finn saw it coming a mile off but somehow he couldn’t move fast enough. His brain seemed to be swimming in thick liquid, his muscles seizing up. He still didn’t feel more than a dull throb of pain from the missing arm, but there were black shadows creeping at the edge of his vision.

Ren walked calmly to the severed arm, bent down and pried the lightsaber out of Finn’s fingers ( _are they still mine?_ Finn thought, distantly, almost wanting to laugh. _They’re free agents, now._ )

He raised his head, his lip stinging. Ren activated Finn’s lightsaber, now holding a weapon in each hand. He walked towards where Finn knelt in the snow.

“Weak,” Ren hissed, standing over him. “Unworthy.”

Finn found himself staring at a point somewhere past Ren, watching the drifting snowflakes. He smiled at the empty insults. He gripped his stump with his surviving hand, pointlessly trying to hold the blood inside even though he wouldn't need it for much longer. 

He hoped the cadets had made it to hyperspace safely. As Ren stepped closer, Finn tried to slow his heartbeat. He took a deep breath and stretched his mind out. Ren raised both lightsabers, crossed over each other. Finn spread his perception through the Force, felt the pulsing sap in every tree, the flickering lives of the pilots around the oscillator, and the hollow hum of the planet filled with machinery and the imprisoned fire of a sun. He searched for a cluster of gemlike, Force-touched minds at the edge of the atmosphere, but he couldn't find them. Either they'd been shot down in the chaos, or they'd entered hyperspace where his perception couldn't reach. He would never know.

And then a voice cut across the clearing, “Kylo. Get away from him.”

 

\---[]---

 

Even if she hadn't had the Force, Rey could had followed the footprints and the destruction that accompanied them; broken branches, shattered stones, and the smouldering slashes in the trunks of the trees. She came out into the clearing just as Kylo turned on Finn's lightsaber. She took in the whole scene; the huge tree bracketing the fight like the walls of a sparring ring, Finn kneeling in the snow clutching the stump of his severed arm, and her ex-master raising both weapons.

"Kylo!" she cried. He twitched, turned his face towards her voice, and she stepped out of the shadows of the trees. "Get away from him."

He lowered the lightsabers and took a step towards her. Rey glanced at Finn and met his eye for the briefest moment, but could read nothing in his gaze.

Kylo caught the glance, and he snarled. "Don't look at him. You shouldn’t have to see this," his voice was kind, but his eyes were white and wild in his head. "I wanted to protect you from this, like I protected you from everything else."

Rey sneered at him. "You haven't protected me for a long time."

Kylo gritted his teeth, taking in several long breaths. Then he spun and swept the lightsaber through the air towards Finn’s neck. Finn hurled himself backwards with what looked like the last of his strength; Rey screamed and threw out her hand, and Kylo was tossed up and into the air, over the severed trunk of the tree, vanishing from sight. Rey sprinted through the snow to where Finn lay on his side, gasping in pain, eyes squeezed closed, his remaining hand opening and closing on the empty air. She put her hand on his heaving ribs and his eyes opened and met hers.

"Run," he croaked. 

She shook her head, grabbed her lightsaber and got to her feet. She ran to the tree and jumped up onto it, activating both blades. She raised it, ready to strike, but there was no one there.

Kylo roared down from the rocks, landing on the trunk of the tree and slashing at her with the weapon in each hand. Rey turned and barely managed to block him. His face was frenzied, his mind pummeling her with the command to _obey, obey, obey_ , and she staggered backwards along the tree as he struck again and again.

And then Rey found to her disbelief and horror that _she was not ready_. Love and rage are powerful motivators, but they are no match for better swordsmanship. She matched Kylo in raw strength and will, but he knew her too well. He was her teacher: every move she made, every strike, he countered with ease. And he was not playing by the rules under which they’d trained. He had two lightsabers, and he clearly knew how to use them both. He drove her onto the ground and then back and back into the forest. Even when she shoved with her mind and tried to bend him with the Force he anticipated it, because it was how he had trained her in the practice ring every day for the last decade. 

She could deny it all she wanted: he was still her master. And she saw in his eyes that if she did not surrender, he would kill her.

 

\---[]---

 

Finn lay on his good side, holding the stump of his arm, willing the bleeding to stop. Half of his face was pressed into the snow and numbness had progressed to a sting like needles. His breath came in short, shallow gasps. Snatches of medical knowledge from old lessons flitted through his mind. The percentage of blood lost before shock set in. The symptoms of hypothermia. The protocol for storing a severed digit to maximize the chance of surgical reattachment. You had to learn these things before they put a lightsaber in your hand and told you the fights against your fellow students were real now. But he had been a lot younger then, and he couldn’t remember all the details.

He couldn’t hear Rey and her master anymore. Either they had gone deeper into the forest, or he had gone too deep into the pain. He reached out for her with the Force, and there she was, a star that glowed blue between the low hum of the living trees, spirit clashing against the red fire of Kylo Ren. She was strong, but he could feel in her thoughts that she was struggling to gain ground. Ren had trained her, he knew her weaknesses and her predilections. Finn felt the future rushing towards the present, a meteorite towards a planet, two bodies of such enormous momentum that even the strongest could not hope to shift its course.

The world flickered and went dark, and when Finn came out of the faint he had lost his hold on Rey. He strained to reach her again, but it was more difficult now. He stared into the shadows of the trees. The snow fell like stars against the black. 

There was someone kneeling between the trunks, someone small and hunched over.

Was it Rey? Finn tried to sense the person and felt… nothing. An empty space around which the snow danced. He raised his head a little. His eyes refocused.

The girl was sitting on her feet, shaping the snow into a low mound, patting it smooth with her bare hands. She wore a grey, sleeveless tunic and loose trousers: an Academy sparring uniform. She was about twelve years old and her skin was dark, her hair a mass of tight curls spreading in all directions. Finn blinked, waiting for the image to disappear, to resolve as a pale tree-trunk or a lumpy patch of snow. But it persisted.

“TD…” he croaked, digging his elbow into the snow and raising his body a few inches. The place where his arm should be screamed in agony.

The girl turned her face towards him. Her expression was cold, like the snow she didn’t seem to feel. She stood up and walked towards him, the drifts gathering around her bare ankles. She crouched down to look at him, her hands resting on her knees, her head tilted to one side.

“Hello, Eight-Seven.”

“You're here,” he craned his neck to look up at her.

“You’re hurt,” she said, impassive. Snow gathered on her eyelashes, but she did not blink. It did not melt on her skin but gathered on all the ridges of her face, outlining her lips, brows and nose. Her breath made no fog in front of her. “You don’t want to die. None of us do.”

He closed his mouth and shook his head. Old Maz had told him the dead could not give him forgiveness, and now that the dead were here, he realised it was too late. He had given up asking for forgiveness long ago. Some things were more important.

He couldn’t hold himself upright any longer. He collapsed onto his back without taking his eyes off the girl.

“TD,” he whispered. “Why did you spare me? You dragged all the others into an Entity, but not me.”

She looked down at him, still unblinking. There was something in her mouth, as if she had extra rows of teeth leading back into her throat. “I didn’t spare you, Eight-Seven.”

He pulled for air that spread the cold through his body. “What does that mean?”

“You were connected like all the others.” She reached out to brush away the snow that was gathering at the corners of his eyes. He felt her skin and it was the exact same temperature as the freezing air.

“But you couldn’t control me,” Finn said.

“I didn’t have to control you,” TD said. It wasn’t teeth in her mouth, but white liquid, thick as blood. It overflowed and dripped down her chin in two thin trickles. Finn heard it hiss as it hit the snow. “I trusted you.”

Finn stared at her, straining for each breath. She stood up, the whiteness streaming over her lips and down her chest, but her speech was still clear and unimpeded. “Goodbye, Eight-Seven. I hope you don’t die.”

She turned and walked away towards the darkness of the forest. “TD, wait,” Finn twisted his neck to follow the sight of her. “Come back. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

He heaved himself onto his front despite the pain. The snow whirled thick across his eyes and when it passed he couldn’t see her between the trees. But in the distance, the blizzard cleared for a moment. His eyes were stronger now. He could see the red glow of the lightsaber blades in the far distance, their screech and hiss muffled by the snow.

“Rey,” Finn let go of the stump of his arm and reached out with his good hand. The blue glow of her spirit was flickering. He could feel fear beneath her rage. She knew she was losing. “Rey, I'm here.”

He remembered being fourteen years old, watching his classmates collapse, writhing and foaming at their mouths, and not understanding why. He remembered it seemed strange that they were unable to embrace the connection. It was not something they had to fight. It was full of strength and comfort. He was part of his sister (his friend, then), as she was part of him. They were one creature, one spirit with two minds, as every living thing was One with the Force. But the others had been raised to fight, raised to mistrust, raised to seek weakness. For them to join the Entity they had to be overcome, they had to be controlled, and TD did not have the finesse to control them without hurting them. Without killing them. When Finn realised this he had run to her, shaken her shoulders, told her to break the connection. It was too late. The Entity was full of hungry darkness and it wanted more, it wanted to spread, it was ruled by TD's panicked need to take control of what was happening around her. It was her fear and her anger and her desire for the power she had always been denied and she could no longer hide her emotions, because simply feeling them was enough to pour them out into the Entity. She was a scared, angry child lashing out without knowing that she now wielded an unimaginable strength, and so the consequences only made her more scared and angry. But that Entity had been built on control, not on trust.

This time it was just two of them, him and the masterless apprentice. This time neither of them needed to bend anyone to their will. 

“Rey. I trust you,” Finn stretched out a thread of Force, as he had done for TD in the Academy nine years ago, as he had done in the cell on D’Qar and found Rey across a trillion miles of space. He gave her his strength, unconditional and unafraid, and made her more than the sum of their parts.

 

\---[]--- 

 

The sun was gone, the sky filled with stars, and beneath the trees their way was lit only by the clashing lightsabers. 

Kylo had driven Rey to the edge of a huge chasm in the earth. Sweat ran down her throat in runnels and her boots would have slipped in the snow, but she was holding her ground by Force alone. Their eyes were locked on each other, grappling with each other’s minds as well as their swords.

Kylo snarled at her. “Give in. I will protect you from Snoke.”

“I'm not afraid of him or you. You can’t hurt me,” Rey spat the words at him. He pressed in close, scraping his blade along her lightsaber and until it was wrenched from her hand and flung several feet away. It plunged deep into the snow. It might as well have been a thousand miles away. Rey stumbled back, unarmed, shivering in the cold and exhaustion of the fight. She had lost.

She realised there was one bluff left. "Kill me then," she spread her arms. "Do it! Kill me or let Finn go. If you hurt him again I will never stop hunting you."

Kylo dragged the end of his twin blades through the snow, his teeth bared, his eyes locked on hers. "You are a failure. My failure."

"Then prove it!" she screamed, half-hunched, thumping her balled fists on her chest. "Kill me!"

He drew back his own lightsaber as if to strike. She didn't believe he could do it. She loved him too much to believe it. He had been her master, her family, her world. She could see the pain and grief in his eyes, and still she thought, _he's testing me, he's trying to scare me into obedience_. She held his gaze, daring him, but she had learned that pride from him. He understood as well as she did that if they both lived, they would forever be each other’s perfect nemesis. Even as he took a breath that was half a sob, he drove the lightsaber towards her heart. 

_Rey_ , Finn whispered, the soft echo filling her ears, _I'm here._

The blade stopped half an inch from her skin. Rey could feel the heat of it through her thin tunic, which began to darken as it burned from the radiant heat. Her eyes were still locked on Kylo's face, and she could see the surprise and a tinge of relief in his open mouth. Then he steeled himself and sliced towards her neck with the second lightsaber.

Rey raised her hands, each crossed over her body, and seized both blades. She did not quite touch them, but she held them with the Force as easily as plucking flowers. She looked along the length of the blades until she found Kylo's face again, and she smiled and froze him with a blink. 

He comprehended his paralysis, a shudder running through him, and she felt the surprise turn to shock. Rey stepped away, holding out her hand to summon her discarded lightsaber. She activated it once again, stepping around Kylo. His body was trembling now, the lightsabers extended into the empty air where Rey had stood. 

"Now, is this a fair fight?" she asked, tilting her head, and released him. He staggered forward with a gasp, and turned to slash with his blades once, twice. Rey could see the future clearer than shadows on a bright day, and each slash met only empty air as she bent and slid smoothly aside. Over and over again he attacked, and over and over again she anticipated him as if they had danced this fight a thousand times before. She moved away from the chasm, back into the forest, not bothering to look before she stepped onto rocks or around the trunks of trees. She didn't need her eyes or her ears; she could sense everything around her as if the world itself was an extension of her body. 

She smirked at him, her veins full of fire. "Come on, Master!" she leaned back as he swept his blade over her, inches from her face. "You're getting slow in your old age!"

And she jabbed out at him, fast as a bolt from a blaster, and struck him deep in the side below his ribs. Kylo cried out and withdrew, hunched over. He raised his head with a snarl and Rey's smirk grew wider. "Am I finally living up to your standards?"

Kylo voice croaked, his body swaying. "... How?"

"You'll never understand," she stabbed at him again, more slowly, letting him block her with both lightsabers crossed over her blade and enjoying the groan of pain that escaped him. "You tried so hard to stay lonely, even when you couldn't let me go," she thrust her head towards him and the blast of Force sent him staggering back again. She advanced on him in long strides. "But we are stronger together than you will ever be alone."

Kylo slashed out wildly, trying to slow her approach as he lurched away, feet catching in the snow. 

"You took raw iron," she said. "And shaped me and forged me into a weapon. But you forgot that the weapon had a mind of its own," she stepped closer. "You took morality and fear out of my world and now you have nothing left to offer me."

“Sno, stop. You need me. I can teach you to control this power.”

“I don’t need you. Not anymore.”

He attacked with everything he had, and Rey moved like a bolt of electricity, spun and sliced through the handles of both lightsabres at once. The blades vanished and the broken handles fell smoking into the snow. Kylo stumbled back, staring at the ends of his arms; most of his right hand was amputated above the thumb, along with the first two fingers on the left. He cried out as he backed away from her, wordless and afraid. The cry hummed in her bones like music.

“You are holding me back, Master.”

Rey jerked her chin and he was flung away by the invisible blow, skidding along the ground on his back. He struggled to rise onto his elbows as she stepped closer. She put her foot on his chest and pressed him down into the snow.

“It’s the old way of the Sith, the way of true power. When the apprentice has learned all she can, she must kill her teacher.”

“Sno—”

She put the tip of her blade to his throat. “I’m not her.”

“Rey! Please!”

It was the first time he had ever spoken it. It was far too late. 

 

\---[]---

 

The forest was quiet, soft enough for the distant hammers of battle to echo between the trees. There was no wind. The snow fell like stars.

Rey found herself on her knees beside Kylo Ren’s body, bent over, her hand hovering above his face, trying not to touch his terrible wounds. She ran the tips of her fingers over his long nose, across the lines of his brow. She had done this. She could not take it back. Her heart thrummed for a moment and then seemed to slow to the edge of unconsciousness. 

She couldn’t look at him. She bent over, hugging her stomach. Her nerves burned with a fire that ached and was glorious. Somebody was screaming in her voice, with her mouth. She crawled away from her dead master, the skin of her hands scraping off in the snow. The grazes healed as fast as her palms were cut open again. All her bruises and pains were healed. 

She could feel Finn inside her mind, connected to her, not through a thin thread but locked together in their entirety. They were conduits of the Force, they were made of Force-energy, their physical bodies only the faintest outer membrane for the power that rushed through him and poured from her hands. A single spirit, an entity of pure Force.

She didn’t remember her name. She had been so many things over the years; not just the spy, the apprentice, the scavenger, and the child whose memories were now faded into empty sand. She had been a recruiter, testing children in the Force, she had been a team of soldiers ripping hundreds of people apart with her will alone, she had been a knight in a black mask looking up at the towering hologram of his leader and hating him, and hating himself. She had been in a cellar in Takodana reaching for a familiar young man as he held a strange lightsaber in his hand. She had been a boy in the Academy who couldn’t stop dreaming of his dead friend, and she had been a girl who silently made sure the boy was never alone with a blaster. She had been a young man walking through a temple, hunting his master, killing his master's children, and feeling free and alive for the first time. She had been a young woman feeling her father die in her brother’s arms, in the sky far above her. She was the father too, and the brother, and the woman with a smile as beautiful as starlight who had loved them all. And so many others, those she had brushed against, and those they had touched, and those that came before them, all connected through the Force. They were the family she had searched for in the desert, in Kylo, in Finn. She had been part of them all along.

She had no name. It was wonderful. No more duty. No more limitations. Nothing but power.

 

\---[]---

 

In the clearing, trying to rise shakily to his feet, Finn closed his eyes. In the web of Force, Kylo had vanished and left only a ragged hole. Finn and Rey were all that was sentient beneath the trees. But something else was happening. 

Finn could feel the Force rushing through him and into Rey. He knew without bothering to try that he could not have lifted so much as a snowflake with his mind; everything he had was being redirected to her. But he could feel it all the same, not just the power, but everything else that the Force touched. The nodes of the strength through time and space; the places, the people, and the moments of energy and emotion that defined them both. It was frightening, but it was seductive as well. Finn gazed inwards at the heritage that had come before him, and grief at all the wisdom and skill that had been gained and lost without even a shadow remaining in the physical world. 

But as the river flowed into her, the blue of Rey’s spirit was fading. That strong, heady _colour-taste-scent_ that Finn had always taken for granted, that had led him across the stars when he had been imprisoned, was draining away. Bleached to a bone white. Rey wasn't in pain, and yet she was changing no matter how he tried to slow the torrent of Force that connected them. He couldn’t stop her: she _wanted_ to change. Finn gripped his thigh and tried to stand, but he was so cold that his limbs wouldn't obey and he fell back onto his knees. 

“Rey,” he whispered. “It’s done. Come back.”

 

\---[]---

 

The Entity knelt in the snow and smiled. White liquid dripped from her mouth and hissed on the snow.

She was a creature of glowing white all the way through, burning white, that could change the very molecules of everything it touched. The power was like a storm the size of a planet, the core of a burning sun. It moved to her will, no matter how small the command. The subtlest shift in her hands was enough to boil the snow for thirty feet around her, the turn of her head disassembled the trees in all directions, and when she got to her feet a great column of emptiness rose above her and split the clouds themselves. She could feel a wrenching and rumbling beneath the earth as the planet ripped itself apart, but where she stood was serenity and silence. She was sure that if she learned to understand this power better, she could have held the whole planet together, embraced the energy of the sun pulsing inside it, and healed the shattered crust as easily as clapping an insect between her hands. 

She could do anything she wished. She could destroy anyone who blocked her path. No one could deny her. But it was all so new. She didn't know how to wield it yet, and she had no more time to learn. The planet would die before she could save it. A part of her grieved the loss of her body, but she had no fear of death. She would become part of the Force, and the Force was all that mattered.

As she turned on the spot she realised that she was not alone. 

No one should have been able to pierce the column of silence that surrounded her, but a man stood watching her. Not a stranger: it was Finn, wearing a cloak the colour of sand and a tunic of earthy brown, with a hood pulled over his brow. There were wrinkles in the corners of his eyes and the dimples around his mouth were deeper than she remembered.

“Rey. I’m here.”

That’s what he _used_ to call her. That wasn’t her name. She didn’t have a name. 

He held out both his hands, both arms intact, which she knew was impossible (but so was _she_ ). It was him, yet it was not him as he was now. She did not know if this man was a would-be Finn that would one day come to pass, or a could-have-been Finn from another world. But she took a step towards him with a smile. He rested his brown, calloused hands on her shoulders. 

“Come back to me, love,” he said.

“I don’t want to,” she told him, though she didn’t need to breathe or open her mouth to say it. Perhaps he could read her thoughts. Perhaps he was just a figment of her own mind. 

“I know you don’t,” he smiled. “But I’m asking all the same.”

He leaned in and kissed her cheek, the Light side of the Force greeting the Dark. At that point of contact they were two creatures perfectly balanced, two bulbs of an hourglass, hovering in the split second of time between a supernova and the collapse into a black hole. 

She closed her eyes, and felt for the walls of the roaring channel that connected her to Finn, that united their strength. She held it in her mind and pulled the walls together, narrowed them until they were nothing more than a thread, and then she snapped it. She became Rey once again.

Rey leaned forward, unable to breathe, throat and nose clogged with a burning, numbing liquid. Her stomach heaved, her fingers clawed at her neck. Her head spun and for a moment she panicked, her vision growing hazy at the edges. Then she made a fist with her left hand and grasped it with her right, put the knot of fingers to her stomach and jerked them back into her solar plexus. Once, and then twice, and the second time she struck hard.

She vomited something white and smoking out onto the frozen ground, gasping and spluttering, splitting it out in gobs. It was tasteless and coated everything it touched with a rubbery slick. But as she wheezed and coughed the last of it, it evaporated into mist and was gone, leaving only pits in the snow and a faint, greasy outline on her tunic. 

 

\---[]---

 

Finn had dragged himself to the trunk of the fallen tree, leaving a thin trail of blood from his stump. He managed to prop himself sitting up against it. His legs stuck out in front of him, gathering snow. He was shivering uncontrollably now. With one hand he managed to unclip his belt and drag it out of the loops of his trousers. He gritted his teeth as he wrapped it around his stump, trying to pin the swathe of leather between the tree and his truncated upper arm. His hands were shaking so much he dropped the belt three times before he could get the end through the clip, and then twice more before he could grip the end of the belt between his teeth to pull the tourniquet tight. He grunted in pain as the pressure increased just above the wound, and then he closed the clip and slumped against the tree. His remaining fingers were completely numb and stiff. 

He sat and looked across the battle-scarred clearing. The planet rumbled and shook beneath him, quakes that were too violent to be simply the ripples of distant fuel tanks exploding. The Resistance must have destroyed the thermal oscillator. The energy burning inside this world could no longer be controlled.

He felt Rey returning like the warmth of a sun over the horizon. She came through the trees with her deactivated lightsaber in her hand, her back straight and her movements quick but purposeful. They were still connected. Finn felt as if he could reach into her mind and take her memories as easily as a lover reaching under their partner’s clothes, so he knew that the other two lightsabers had been destroyed. He felt no grief for the lost sword. It was given to him by the Academy. He would rather build his own one day, if he had another day to spare.

As she walked, the snow beneath her boots melted and evaporated into clouds of steam, making pits out of her footsteps. Yet her weight still rested on the plane where the snow would have been. She was walking on steam and thin air.

"Finn!" when she saw him, she doubled her pace and ran to kneel beside him. He smiled at her and she reached out to touch his face. "You're freezing! Let me help," she put her arm around his shoulders and he let her drag him away from the tree until she could settle herself behind him, her legs on either side of his, his back pressed against her chest and her arms around his stomach. She was far too warm, inhumanly warm, though not so hot that it burned him.

"He's dead," she said at last, her voice clear as glass in his ear. There was no emotion in it. "We did it."

" _You_ did it," he murmured. "I knew you could."

"You were half of me. I needed you," her tone was still dull, mechanical as an automaton. She squeezed her arms around him and for the briefest moment he was afraid she would not know her own strength and might crush him. "It was so wonderful, Finn, the connection was so open and clear. I felt so powerful. I could kill Snoke, if we faced him together. We could take over the First Order."

"I don't think we're gonna make it off this planet, Rey," he said quietly.

"I know," she answered, and at last there was a scoff in her voice, some tinge of emotion. "But we _could_."

"Yeah," he twisted in her arms to look at her over his shoulder. "We could do anything together."

He kissed her, and she kissed him. Her lips were warm, but not feverishly hot anymore. She clutched him close with her thin, wiry arms, and he reached back with his hand and dug his fingers into her hair. He could feel the dark side of the Force in her, in her blood and sparking through her nerves; and he could feel a core of bright, strong light in his own heart. He felt only gladness that they had both chosen their own paths. The earth rumbled beneath them, but if they had to go, at least they weren't going alone.

When Finn opened his eyes, he caught a glimpse of something through the trees.

"What's that?" Rey's hand went to the lightsaber at her belt. "Is that a ship?"

"Lightning strike, maybe," Finn said.

"No, it's too close," she rested her chin on his shoulder and squinted into the trees. 

Slowly the shivering, bouncing glow resolved itself. It was the beam of a heavy flashlight, and the figure holding it was calling back behind him. _"Here! There's footsteps this way!"_

Out of the trees he came at a jog, boots crunching on the snow, the flashlight shining in their faces. Finn raised his hand to shield his eyes, and the beam dropped to their feet. Into the starlight of the clearing emerged Poe Dameron, wearing a too-big coat of fur-lined leather. His steps slowed as he entered the circle of destruction. Behind him was the wookie from the hanger on D'Qar, his crossbow blaster hanging at his side. He gave a low growl as Poe stepped closer. 

"What happened here?" he asked.

Rey had pushed herself up into a crouch behind Finn, still hugging his body in her arms, almost hiding behind him. "Finn tried to run away," she said. "And Kylo Ren tried to kill him, so I killed Kylo Ren."

Poe's eyebrows shot up and he closed his mouth. Rey hadn't said anything about the cadets, and Finn realised he had never told her about them. The Academy would not be able to trace them beyond Starkiller, and would surely assume they had all been killed when the planet collapsed. No one but him would know where they had gone, and no one would be able to find them even if they suspected they had survived. Finn was glad to keep the secret. If they reached Skywalker and he took them in, they would one day be free to choose their own sides in this war, or not to choose sides at all. He felt a burden of guilt lifted from his shoulders, one he hadn't realised he still carried, a final atonement for his sister's life. 

There was the distant roar of an explosion somewhere miles away, and the leaves of the trees shivered. Poe glanced around and then jogged to their side. "Let's go. The Falcon's not far away."

"Go where?" Rey flinched away from him.

"Home! What? Would you rather die here?" he asked. He tossed the flashlight to the wookie and seized Finn under his shoulder, well above his stump. "Come on, buddy. Come on, Finn. On your feet."

Between him and Rey, they hauled Finn upright. His head spun but he found he could put one foot in front of the other. Rey slid under his surviving arm, and Poe gripped his jacket at the waist and shoulder to support his other side. 

“We’re not going back to that cell, Poe,” Finn hissed.

“I’m not going to put you there. It was hard enough to get you both in the first time,” Poe replied. 

Stumbling and skidding on the snow, the ground rocking every few seconds, they made their way through the forest towards where the ship was resting on a precarious plateau at the edge of a crumbling cliff.

Finn's burned leg was hurting so bad the muscles went into spasm every few seconds. A few yards from the ramp leading into the Falcon, it finally went from under him. He would have fallen, but Poe caught him around the waist and Rey had a strong grip on his arm. Finn found himself inches from Poe's face. Images flashed through his mind, of dragging Poe from the crash on Jakku, of holding him by his throat in the cellar on Takodana, of laughing with him in the prison on D'Qar, and of Poe's grim face as the guards dragged Finn out of the command centre while General Organa watched impassively.

"Why are you helping us?" Finn grunted as Poe heaved him back onto his feet. 

Poe looked him in the eye and gave him perhaps the first honest answer either of them had offered each other. "I don't know.” 

Finn had all the reasons in the galaxy not to trust him, but Poe had all the reasons in the galaxy not to help them. If Finn could love Rey in all her darkness, then he could forgive Poe and start anew.

Inside the Falcon it was warm, the engines already purring. There was a jolt as the ground beneath them shifted and tilted them a few degrees towards the cliff. Poe lowered Finn onto the seat in the common room and then sprinted for the cockpit. The wookie paused long enough to give them a warning growl and then followed him. The engines roared into full power and they lifted off just as the ground below them collapsed.

Finn didn't think he'd ever have the strength to move again. He leaned against the seat, holding his stump to protect it from the jolts, and looked across the room at Rey. She sat on an upturned crate, her hands on her knees, shifting with the movement of the ship but otherwise motionless.

She met his eyes. She smiled at him. There was something cruel and terrible behind her eyes, raw ambition and cold detachment mingling into a caustic, bone-white danger. He smiled back at her. He'd made his own imperfect choices, and maybe allowing Rey to leave the planet alive would turn out to be the worst of them. Perhaps there were places in the Force you could not return from.

But she was as she was, and he would not try to change her for anything.


End file.
